Page 332 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

seen so much devastation. We didn’t know what it would entail,
but it was a target, an objective, something to aim for, something
to drive us forward.
A couple of weeks later I got back on a plane and together
Seema and I talked to everyone who we thought could help. We
talked to a number of architects, but the concept of building
something quickly and cheaply in a disaster region was beyond
them. They made suggestions, but they were things that would
only work if you could drive an articulated lorry to the building
site. No one seemed to be able to comprehend the complexity of
the task, and once again I returned to the UK feeling quite
demoralised.
I was telling friends in London about my frustrations, and one
of them suggested I contact a friend who ran a structural
engineering consultancy called Buro Happold that had just done
lots of rebuilding work after the Indian Ocean tsunami. So I called
up the chief exec and within minutes I knew I had found someone
who understood the complexities and limitations of working in a
disaster zone.
‘When can I come and see you?’
‘Can you get here this afternoon?’
Their office was just five minutes from mine. I couldn’t quite
believe that the solution I had been looking for was so close at
hand. I arrived there a couple of hours after my initial phone call,
and they had already downloaded aerial images of the area and
come up with some suggestions of what kind of construction
would be possible. At the end of the meeting I had a list of
questions for which they needed answers in order to proceed, such
as what resources were available on the ground: there was no
point in them designing buildings to be made of wood if there were
no trees to cut down. To get those answers, we needed someone
on the ground, so Seema put us in touch with a local guy who
could assess the availability of materials and manpower locally.

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