Opinion: The architecture should not cost lives of

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Large construction site of a new shopping center to the beach located in Dubai Marina. Image © a-image / Shutterstock.com

Is it more dangerous to be a soldier or a construction worker? Surprisingly, it is the latter. According to a recent report Guardian , 448 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 01. In the same period, 760 construction workers died on British sites.

life is cheap at the end of dirty architecture not just in the UK. The number of deaths from largely Indian subcontinent migrant workers imported to implement the architectural ambitions of Qatar, including stadiums for the 2022 World Cup, was the subject of much discussion wring their hands. And rightly so - over 400 workers of the Indian and Nepalese building died in Qatar in 2013, and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has warned that up to 4,000 workers may die before a ball is finally launched in 2022 .

If 400 people died in a plane crash, there would thoroughly investigate the safety of aircraft, the lessons will be learned and improvement strategies implemented . There would also be a palpable sense of loss and responsibility. But a fatality here and there on a construction site over a period of time does not have the same galvanizing momentum.

And besides, the show must go; time is money, after all, and the last project superstar not wait. It is only when statistics are confused that the scale of the human cost darkly becomes apparent. "Building design is generally not very dangerous," wrote Fran Tonkiss, but construction of them can be extremely then

This is a sensitive issue, but the question must be asked :. What is the response of the architects of all this? Judging by the reaction of Zaha Hadid to conditions in Qatar, where it is due to the construction of the main stadium for the World Cup, it is a helpless shrug. "I can not do anything about it because I have not the power to do something," she was quoted as saying, this is probably the bald and depressing truth.

It is clear that the way construction sites are regulated and the conditions of migrant workers, widely considered contract labor bordering on slavery, are a matter for the Government of Qatar. But as Fran Tonkiss points out: "If it is true that architects can not do anything about debt bondage and workers dead, then is not the only power they have that of doing nothing more decided in work contexts such as these? What exactly is the duty of the architect in this (or any) securing the people who get their constructed buildings? "

in some respects, it is about the old moral authority. Architects used to direct the construction team, but were gradually marginalized. Yet, as the instigators and choreographers construction, they surely have a duty of care and a collective bargaining power that might go beyond the mere helpless shrug. what Tonkiss called "human technology" of the construction process should be just as important as the fetishistic desire for materials and technologies. ultimately, the architecture should not cost lives.

This article was published in The Architectural Review . Register here.