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Chairman’s Communiqué
A moment of
magic
I first met Robert Plattner near Boksburg in November
1992 for a demonstration of a new building system that
he and his partner, Jochen Kofahl, were promoting
Robert fired up the motor on the M2, poured
some sieved soil into the top chamber and after a
little legerdemain produced a building block made
entirely of soil. So on the side of the road near the
East Rand Mall, Robert produced a building block
and I became one of many over the past several
decades who have been instantly converted by the
sight of a Hydraform block rising, as if by magic,
from the forming chamber after a few simple moves.
Robert explained that the real article needed a cement
component and how the blocks fitted together in the new
Hydraform Building System but he needed to say little
more as I was sold on the product and system.
After some haggling, I agreed to take the agency for
the Press Group in Malawi and an excellent decision it
turned out to be.
Further meetings explained that the idea had been born
after Jochen had seen a massive adobe brick machine
promoted from the Americas. He believed he could produce
a better machine and block and in 1988 took the plunge
to invent it. While Elmarie Kofahl concentrated on her job
at the bank, Jochen started operations in their Boksburg
garage. He soon cajoled Robert into giving up his job
and together they worked on the dream, operating on the
slimmest of funds.
While Robert concentrated on selling, Jochen
demonstrated a flair for developing and inventing
while involving knowledgeable academics, professionals
and businessmen to help with technical, legal and attitudinal
roadblocks and to increase acceptability of Hydraform’s
“soil-cement” block concept in South Africa and beyond.
Their efforts took them through the various South African
institutes with extensive testing and work at the Council for
Scientific and Industrial research (CSIR), the South African
Bureau of Standards (SABS), and the University of the
Witwatersrand (Wits) where eventually Hydraform became
part of three faculties’ syllabi and from where a number
of Hydraform executives have been sourced. This led to
Hydraform’s Agrément Certificate – an essential for building
approval in South Africa and across Africa.
By the early 1990s steps were being made to other
African countries besides Malawi with marketing and
technical exercises carried out across Africa, in India and
in South America. All this was done by a tiny team on the
smallest of budgets.
Major advantages were recognised in the mobility of
Hydraform machines to the most remote of sites, the
reduced use and cost of cement, reduced cost of transport,
the ease of operation with previously unskilled labour, the
high-quality standard block shape and face-brick potential,
the elimination of tree-felling for clay-brick burning, the use
of non-specialist sub-soils, and the host of other advantages
in this eco-friendly and economical process, now almost
taken for granted.
Now Hydraform is both a household name and a generic
for soil-cement blocks and systems. After all the years
of hard work and innovation we are firming our grip on
processes and training to move up a gear into the growing
soil-cement market.
So after nearly three decades we are the target and not
the newcomer, but this does not faze us – rather it pushes
us to keep ahead of the copycats with continued innovation,
quality and training support.
The past has been full of challenges overcome and the
future is an opportunity to embrace.
JHM Carter
Chairman
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