Destination: Dilapidations

This article first appeared in the print edition of RICS Building Surveying Journal, July-August 2018, where it was edited for formatting and content.

Growing up in Fife, Scotland, getting my building surveying degree in Edinburgh then some years later moving to Brisbane, Australia, and all the travel in between, I can safely say I have the wanderlust.

In my role at KPMG’s physical due diligence team, the opportunity to travel came up regularly. Often interstate, sometimes overseas. Sometimes it’s about who’s available and moving things around, other times you put your hand up. When the chance to travel to Papua New Guinea came up, my hand went up.

On my return, I had received an RICS email inviting members to submit their nominations for the Pride in the Profession initiative, to showcase the significant and positive impact surveyors have made in society in the organisation’s 150th year. Fresh from my Papua New Guinea (PNG) trip I received the membership email inviting members to nominate. Normally I don’t go in for this type of thing, but I clicked it to see what it was about. It was a brief online submission and with my PNG experience still fresh in my mind, the story wrote itself.

Travel

When my hand went up, my colleagues who apparently knew better, were apprehensive. And so begun the risk assessment of my trip. Other than it lying close to the equator just north of Queensland, I didn’t know anything about PNG. I began to hear about the risks including violent crime, malaria, and tribal murder. My wife was not amused and needed reassurance that I was going to be safe. A quick Google showed me what she might find; 

After Googling “Papua New Guinea problems” I started to think I shouldn’t have, for the same reason you don’t Google your aliments. Port Moresby apparently ranked among the top ten most dangerous cities in the world, next to Damascus, Tripoli and Lagos.

I would be travelling first to Port Moresby, meeting local colleagues, then transferring to Madang, the approximate location of the two sites I was visiting. When planning my trip, I consulted with my local colleagues on whether or not I needed malaria tablets, if the weather would affect the work, behaviour to expect from locals, hiring a security detail to drive us between accommodation and site, assuming the corporate Amex would be useless and if I needed currency. Down to who would meet me when I landed in Madang and if they would be driving me to my accommodation.

I was heavily relying on my Port Moresby based colleagues for their insight, advice and coordination.

People

I was told that Port Moresby was considered somewhat of a bubble in contrast to the rest of PNG, especially rural PNG. Between the Madang airport shed and the accommodation, the drive on the hotel bus was my first real glimpse.

I saw people of all ages at the sides of the roads in varied states of dress; there was piles of waste on fire, old beat up trucks and buses over packed with people, seemingly random stalls appearing to sell mobile phone credit. There were clusters of shanti huts in the bush. In summary, it was the closest to third world I had seen and I felt like an intruder cowering in the safety of a hotel bus. On approach to the hotel, it was hard to miss the high perimeter wall topped with razor wire. I pulled out my phone to take a photo and just as I did, two young men at the side of the road entered the frame, gave great smiles and waved. Finally, an icebreaker.

Off the beaten track

The site locations presented their own challenges, one being on a semi-active volcano island no less. The first hospital was about a half hour outside of Madang. Our security escort drove us down the highway for a short while before turning off onto track, which quickly became dense rainforest. After about 20 minutes of ascent, driving past people on the road seemingly traversing the same on foot alone, we arrived.

It was clear right away this was not like any inspection I had undertaken before. I learned from staff and information they had to hand that the buildings were constructed by volunteers around 1948, using buildings and materials left over from the world war two. As I inspected, I walked past babies born only moments earlier, in a structure that is not weather tight or even clean to the standard of my own home let alone the hygiene standard of a western hospital. It didn’t matter, these buildings continue to serve a critical function to the local community, without them would be devastating hardship. I won’t forget the client telling me that it is their faith that keeps them going.

Having a good understanding of the buildings use was critical for the finished condition reports, and in this case it was to support a business case for a grant. I knew particular care was needed in the way I would report the condition of these properties. It was a context I had never encountered.

My approach was to declare that the condition of buildings had not been assessed against criteria used for Australian buildings; for example, an assessment to an Australian standard, or most western standards for that matter, would conclude that the majority of buildings inspected should not be occupied or in use.

Instead, ensuring a good understanding of the context of the buildings – their location, age and use – condition ratings and risk ratings could still be applied and ultimately be of value to the client. A skeptic may have observed that I couldn’t have reported on these buildings and they should have been demolished. In fact, I was able to produce a condition report, which was more valuable owing to the property’s remote location.

Second Site

Site number two was located on Karkar Island. Initially, we had chartered a dive boat for the two hour sail there, however an up to date report forecast rough conditions. Plan B was a helicopter.

I’d been on a helicopter before as a tourist. It did feel different boarding one for work, a different kind of excitement maybe. The weather had gotten moody so the pilot was staying on the coast for as long as he could before flying the shortest distance from the coast to the island, to minimize the time crossing ocean as much as possible. On approach the volcano’s peak was shrouded by raincloud, and I could see a white dot just off the beach, nestled in a sea of green palms. I couldn’t help but think of my favourite movie, Jurassic Park, and Hammond pointing out toward Isla Nublar, saying “There!” as William’s score began to roar the main theme tune. It was around then I might of thought “wow, this is just great. I’m at work right now”.

The pilot circled the hospital site, like a dog circling on the spot before choosing to lie down. I franticly shot my camera across his field of view down at the roofs below. After one loop he said “tell you what mate, I’ll circle the other way so you can get better photos out of your window”. Drone survey eat your heart out.

There was a clear paddock in the middle of the site, presumably for helicopters to land. As the bird lowered, bodies looked up, running, and lining the perimeter fence. The rotors were still whirring loudly as we stepped out, and a hundred faces stared as we walked towards them. I didn’t have time for sensory overload however, the main doctor emerged through the fence to greet me and ask what I wanted to do first. The pilot reminded me that a storm was coming in and if we wanted to fly back without any problems, I’d best be done inside a couple of hours.

Without hesitation, “where can we sit down,” so that I could interview the doctor alongside a few others familiar with the site. My phone was fully charged and ready to go, permission to record our conversations was granted. I reeled off standard requests, “tell me problems you know about”, keeping it strictly to physical condition each time he veered into operational issues. Water leaks, wall cracks, general damage, etc. Then asking him to take me to them, following which I began the usual methodical approach to ensuring I’d viewed each part of the site as I walked through it.

It had already started to rain lightly. The shutter continually firing at all building surfaces, first getting wide context shots, then identifying defects to be photographed. My site contact walked and talked. As my camera hung around my neck, my other hand was stopping and starting the recorder app whilst I dictated my observations and listened to the wealth of information the doctor had to offer. A critically damaged wall forming what used to be used as a ward was apparently caused by tremors for the island’s semi-active volcano. These weren’t cracks you would measure. Surely a future tremor would destroy it. Cracks and openings were evident around the whole site.

With all of the images I had captured from both sites, and with the format of the deliverable in mind, my workflow was key. I used Beyond Condition to streamline my data entry and export pre-formatted condition reports; essentially raw excel spreadsheets including my data entry, image metadata including filenames linking back to the photo appendix, and with an option selected to automatically include an image thumbnail on each line. With over 200 items in each report, this saved an incredible amount of time, and provided excellent context. The end users of the reports are a faith based organisation and had a key requirement for them to be as clear and non technical as possible. I still had to explain what a soffit was even though it could be viewed in the adjacent thumbnail, so included a standard building definition diagram in the appendix. Being able to refer to RICS Condition Report guidance notes and examples in this instance was refreshing for someone who is used to delivering reports to people who already work in property.

Since my move to Australia I’ve been lucky enough to get to visit all eight states and territories, especially getting to know the main cities down the east coast. Every now and then, I get to travel inland which presents its own challenges, and my experience visiting PNG has taught me to speak to as many people as I can that are familiar with the local conditions. Some things you can’t learn online or from a textbook. My trip to regional Papua New Guinea is easily my most memorable inspection experience to date. I look forward to the next opportunity to top it.

CJLM

This article first appeared in the print edition of RICS Building Surveying Journal, July-August 2018, where it was edited for formatting and content.