The builder from Nuuk, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

Greenland

The builder from Nuuk

Building refurbishment in Greenland cannot avoid coming up against a number of problems. Some of them can be solved in advance through thorough planning and by accepting a lengthy building phase.

Søren Rom Poulsen has been a builder, first in Qasigiannguit (Christianshåb) and now in Nuuk (Godthåb), since the 1960s. He, like all Greenland's other building tradesmen, has just been on a course to equip him to bid for coming building refurbishment assignments in Greenland. Most of the assignments will concern blocks of flats from the 1950s to the 1980s. However, schools and other institutional buildings are also in a state of decay. The main forms of refurbishment will be improved insulation, new windows, and new bathrooms.

As a tradesman, the builder from Nuuk realises that it may be extremely difficult to decide what should be refurbished and what ought really to be modernised.

"It is going to be difficult to separate the two things," says Søren Rom Poulsen. "It will be necessary to make some kind of schedule distinguishing between refurbishment and modernisation - in other words, anticipate cases of doubt."

He also thinks there may well be some delicate battles ahead about causes - poor maintenance, shoddy workmanship, hardhanded use, etc. In many cases, the full extent of the damage will only become clear after the refurbishment work has started.

"There has been some shoddy building - no doubt about that! And we have naturally also seen cases of lack of maintenance."

Shoddy work and building stop

"Does that mean," I ask, "that you as a builder risk having to stop work in the middle of a refurbishment job to get a decision on whether the job is refurbishment or whether some parts of the building have to be rebuilt? Just as when builders come across the remains of a building from Hans Egede and Gertrud Rask's time during excavation work, and the work has to stop because archaeologists have to be called in?"

Søren Rom Poulsen replies, "That kind of situation will undoubtedly arise many times during the coming refurbishment programme. Those bridges will have to be crossed as they arise, on the spot by the supervision - architects and engineers. It is they who are responsible to the client."

Asked whether there are going to be enough qualified building tradesmen, Søren Rom Poulsen says that this depends on the rate of building refurbishment, and whether the Home Rule Government is thinking particularly about the Greenlandic part of the labour force and willing to ensure stable work for many years to come. A proper plan and proper management would be good for Greenlandic society and for employees, and would make it possible to attract apprentices to the building trades. One of the biggest problems in Greenland is that there are too few apprentices within the building sector.

If a building gang comes up from Denmark, the men will usually want to earn some money in a hurry so they will be interested in as many hours of work as possible. That is not what the Greenlandic part of the labour force wants. What they want is not hectic periods of work, usually in the summertime, but stable work over a long period of time.

As in Denmark, so in Greenland

"Those buildings," I say, pointing over my shoulder to some blocks of flats in the centre of Nuuk, "are modular buildings as we know them from provincial towns in Denmark. Have any of the buildings been built specifically for conditions in Greenland?"

"No," says the builder from Nuuk. "The old blocks of flats were built at a time when Greenland's Technical Organisation (GTO) was in charge of building projects, together with Danish architects. Those flats could just as well lie in Skanderborg. And the dwellings in Qasigiannguit were not built for Greenlandic hunters. They were not designed for dragging a seal in and onto the kitchen floor!"