ASTRACT

Building, civil engineering and heavy engineering projects are major contributions from the construction industry to national development. Buildings occupy the central focus of any infrastructural development and it is constructed to basically provide the citizenry with safe and comfortable enclosure for abode, business and industrial activities in enclosures free from the vagaries of the open environment” (Amobi, 2009). Emmitt et al, (2005) further highlighted the basic requirement and performance of a building to accomplish the following:

i)       Adaptable and durable;
ii)      Ease of maintenance (periodic repair and replacement);

iii)     Ability to recycle materials and components.
iv)     Thermal and acoustic performance;

v)      Service life of the building and its elements;;

vi)     Availability of materials;

vii)    Sequence of construction and tolerance

viii)   Reduction in waste (labour, material and time).

The building culture of pre-independence Nigeria was an absolute dependence on earth building techniques such as use of adobe bricks (sun-dried bricks) and wattle and daub (mud wall construction) Alagbe 2011. After the independence the craving for westernization resulted in the import the Conventional Building System (CBS). This system according to Benfield, (2010)implies construction with the use of in-situ masonry for the outside walls (blocks, bricks, stones and concrete walls or other ‘in-situ’ materials). Its heavily dependence on the use of cement and other imported building materials for its construction and maintenance in recent times have been proven to be inefficient and wasteful due to enormous amount of resources consumed (Ghosh 2002).