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Chairman’s Communique
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JHM Carter -
Chairman
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.
R
obert fired up themotor on theM2, 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 Hydraformexecutives 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 Hydraformmachines 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.
A moment of
Magic