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I'm not sure if I understand well your question.

If you are looking for inspirations and transfer of technologies, just look at "reinforced soil". Henry Vidal observed earthworks strengthened with bamboo in Indochina and brought this idea to Europe using steel stripes.

Thank you. That is a very interesting subject, but not exactly what I am looking for (I do recognize I was not clear enough).

Generally the question is on risk factors and strategies to mitigate them when implementing constructive technologies in places where previously there is no knowledge or a poor knowledge of these technologies (e.g. when shipping overseas to a developing country). I am aware of literature on "construction risk factors", and on historical failures (e.g. "Maison Tropicale", Jean Prouvé) but I am here specifically interested in hearing about recent examples that the community might have heard of.

Dear Antonio Lopes Correia

I think that the problem you mentioned is bi-directional.

Poor quality assurance in developing countries may bring some risk to the application of sophisticated technologies and lack of experience causes many shortcomings in execution of works. You may find plenty of examples delivered by "Western" companies offering their services on developing markets. All those examples will justify even higher prizes of consulting on developing markets than back home :-)

But I'd like to emphasize an opposite problem: exporting of constructions and technologies that simply does not fit to another context (culture, climate, habits, customer tradition). You cannot (or better you shouldn't) copy-paste modern office buildings from Europe to Africa. Different sun exposure brings the need of excessive cooling (climate control) that makes those building very expensive in operation. It works well only in Gulf countries where energy is very cheap.

I personally met another problem of "standard foundations" for silos in Tanzania. The typical solution suitable for Polish (Central European) ground conditions were unacceptable for African loess soil and rainy seasons.

Another problem occurred when a properly designed (in Spain) steel exposition hall was build (according to that design) in Poland. The construction collapsed due to the load of the ice and snow on the roof in winter.

To summarize. I'm not sure to what extent my comments will be helpful. However I've an impression that we (in Europe and America) tend to blame the communities in developing countries of their "no knowledge or a poor knowledge" of our high-tech technologies. From my point of view (academic working for the industry), it is just our offer which is not properly fitted to our oversees clients needs, their culture, skills and overall demands concerning construction and maintenance.

Thank you for your insight. I do agree that local specificities (climatic, seismic, legal or other) are key considerations that should be present since early design stages. On the other hand, it may also be hard to be aware of all the main factors, specially if and when companies demand high yield in short time.

It is a complex and very nuanced subject that I think it should be discussed not only with methodological insights of the kind of "construction risk assessment", but also by an updated record of cases, as those you've exemplified, that can help to form a more vivid and less "westernized" and detached picture of the issues.

Anyway the issues can even occur within different regions of a "developed" country. For instance, in the most isolated Portuguese islands, construction quality is typically poorer than in mainland, since technological practices are not properly updated due to poor workmanship training, migration of young population, and so forth.