Canadian building technique to be tried in Taiwan

[dArKeR]

The Canadian Council of Forest Industries yesterday introduced a environmentally friendly wood-frame-construction method and said it will develop professional training programs to teach Tai-wanese the technique.

"We will help develop hands-on woodframe construction programs for students attending National Taipei University of Technology," said Paul Newman, the council's executive director.

The council, a non-profit organization sponsored by the Canadian government, began its orientation program yesterday by signing an agreement with the Construction and Planning Agency of the Ministry of the Interior.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/10/25/2003073295

This is really an interesting story for me. Anyone who's been to South/East Asia knows how terrible the (modern) construction is. This just don't make sense. Window/door frames with 2 inch gaps. Walking up stairs you bang you head on the above staircase because they didn't measure the distance correctly as you step on a higher step but your head hits the lower bottom of the flight above you. Floors, sidewalks, modern buildings/hotels/IBM building... made of polished marble so when it gets just a little wet it because like ice. (And this is monsoon area.) Other sidewalks made of tiles when break within a month of being laid. NO concrete areas are first laid with steel wiring. (So it chips apart within 3 months. Any wood used for outdoor is NOT glossed so the sun/water breaks it down with 4 months then the Formosa Termite eats it. No walls are first painted with Primer. They just use the paint which flakes off within a years. You can hear the TVs, radia, talking, toilets, showers through the walls of every apartment/condo I've ever been in in Asia. No such thing as thermal pane glass for noise reduction/insulation. No doors have any sound insulation. In a place where the temps reach (realfeel) 130F for months at a time you've got A/C specialist who install your unit and leave gaps of 2 inches in on the hoses and unit. If they do bother to cover they use duct tape which falls off in a month.

And no local people even notice this.

Theres one heck of a marker in Asia for Western professional contractors!