ENGINEERING STANDARDIZATION AND DESIGN CENTRE

NEWSLETTER
Engineering Standardization and resolutions, the Council expanded the
Design Centre mandate of MONUC to the supervision
April 2010 United Nations Logistics Base of the implementation of the Ceasefire
Volume 3 Brindisi, Italy Agreement and assigned multiple
esdc@unlb.org related additional tasks.]
© 2010 ESDC Currently MONUC Kinshasa offices are
spread over nine different locations
(CONGOBAT, HQ, AFD, BCDC,
The ESDC and ALCATEL, ONATRA, COTE and

Inside the ESDC

UTEX I & II), which makes the daily
Mission Support work and communication between
offices difficult and less efficient. In
The ESDC and Mission
Eye to eye with MONUC addition, some of the compounds are

1 Support
Eye to eye with MONUC
and MINUSTAH not MOSS compliant.

The ESDC was requested to conduct a

and MINUSTAH Paola De Mauro and Christian Henze visit to assess the suitability of different
sites within the Kinshasa compounds to
The new DATABASE WELCOME to the third edition of the
4 Up and running…?! ESDC Newsletter. We will circulate this
letter from time to time in order to keep
serve as the proposed new base and also
to assess the extent of repair and
upgrading of existing facilities required.
all engineers and friends updated on
The GROOVE Planet developments in the Engineering
4 Resistance is futile! Standardization and Design Centre.
Paola De Mauro became part of the
Working Team consisting of Francesco
Savarese (Project Manager and Chief
In March 2010, the ESDC supported Engineer), Alain Fortin (Chief
The new INTEGRATED
5 MISSION, HQ and CAMP
PLANNING TEMPLATES
MONUC* on the ground for almost
four weeks.
Procurement), Jean Francois Faivre
(Chief Security Advisor), Laurence
The latest news! Minguell (OIC CITS), Arz Alam
(Welfare Officer), and Joana-Luiza
Where is my camp? Alexandru (Coordination Officer),
5 The new SOR Templates tasked to design the new MONUC
Integrated Mission Head Quarters
(IMHQ) in Kinshasa.
What’s up in the ESDC?
6 -New Staff Member
-‘Seacon Modification Set’
-UNHQ Support UN Peacekeepers in MONUC
-Presentations to Visitors
[*Following the signing of the Lusaka
-Back in UNSOA
Ceasefire Agreement in July 1999
between the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC) and five regional States
in July 1999, the Security Council
established the United Nations
MONUC Premises in Kinshasa, DRC
Organization Mission in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (MONUC) in The assessment was conducted from
November 1999, initially to plan for the 11th February to 2nd March 2010 with
observation of the ceasefire and the objective to verify the suitability of
disengagement of forces and maintain empty plots of land within the safe
liaison with all parties to the Ceasefire compounds in Kinshasa, for the re-
Agreement. Later in a series of allocation of approx. 1500 staff with

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April 2010
related supporting facilities, approx. 300
UN parking lots inside the perimeter
and 200 parking lots for private vehicles
outside the perimeter.
The ESDC developed, on the basis of
the Engineering Integrated Planning
Template, the concept design with two
different options: option 1) based on the
complete refurbishment of the existing
premises, and option 2) based on the
placement of prefabricated modules and
refurbishment of certain existing
structures.
HQ Summary from Engineering Integrated Planning Template
The Working Team elaborated the
preliminary project following UN
Guidelines, Engineering Manuals and
best practice examples and provided all
required Layout Drawings, Technical
Specifications, Scope of Work, Bill of
Quantities and related documents.
Utex I, Kinshasa - DRC
2 . . . . . . . . . .
FHQ, Kinshasa - DRC
The Integrated Mission HQ project is
now under Procurement process for
final approval and contract awarding.
Part of the MONUC Working Team
The second mission supported on the
ground was MINUSTAH*.
[*The United Nations Stabilization
Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was
established on 1 June 2004. The UN
mission succeeded a Multinational
Interim Force (MIF) after President
Bertrand Aristide departed Haiti for
exile in the aftermath of an armed
conflict. MINUSTAH’s original
mandate was to restore a secure and
stable environment, to promote the
political process, to strengthen Haiti’s
Government institutions and rule-of-
law-structures, as well as to promote
and to protect human rights.
The devastating earthquake of 12
January 2010, which resulted in more
than 220,000 deaths, including 101 UN
staff members, delivered a severe blow
to the country's already shaky economy
and infrastructure. The Security
Council, by resolution 1908 of 19
January, endorsed the Secretary-
General's recommendation to increase
the overall force levels of MINUSTAH
to support the immediate recovery,
reconstruction and stability efforts in
the country.]
3 please consider the environment before printing this newsletter
ESDC-Newsletter
Collapsed MHQ Christopher, PaP, Haiti
Collapsed Human Rights Building, MHQ Christopher, PaP, Haiti
After the fatal earthquake that also
caused the collapse of the Mission HQ,
Human Rights Building, IMTC-Center
and the partial collapse of the Police
HQ, Herbert Pechek (DFS/UNHQ)
together with Christian Henze (ESDC)
arrived in the mission and supported
MINUSTAH for several weeks in order
to design the new permanent Integrated
Mission HQ.
Based on the facts that (1) Seismic
Codes are currently not available and
might vary across Port au Prince and
Haiti, (2) important Buildings should be
built according to higher codes and (3)
even Code Compliant Buildings can be
damaged, we developed a concept
design according to the highest seismic
design categories, class E and F.
Risk Assessment MINUSTAH MHQ
In addition, the devastating impact of
tropical storms and hurricanes has been
considered for the proposed concept
design. Therefore, our design concept
included following points:
April 2010
1) Safe and Suitable to climate and
environment including seismic
activities, strong winds, cyclones
and hurricanes, and the Tropical
climate;
2) Meet requirements of integrated
mission work processes including
efficiency - convenient proximity,
communication - most effective
means internally and externally,
productivity - logical flow within
building(s) and site;
3) User friendly and compliant to
occupational H&S standards
including sufficient natural light,
short distances, open spaces,
integrated recreation facilities,
sufficient washroom & dining
facilities, adequate thermal and
sound insulation, comfortable room
climate, etc..
4) MOSS compliance according to
current UN Security standards and
requirements.
These requirements resulted in the
development of a modular, eco-friendly
structural robust steel frame building
with interlocked frames and restrained
joints to allow inelastic deformations
including strong wind braces and
minimum roof overhang.
Basic Module 5m x 5m
These modules can be stacked up to
three (3) floors high and are expandable
in all directions as required.
Sample of 5mx5m and 2,5mx5m modules as building
3 please consider the environment before printing this newsletter
ESDC-Newsletter
In the meantime, the ESDC together
with ES-UNHQ is proceeding to
develop an overall systems contract
including office-, corridor-, ablution-,
cooking/dining-, and staircase modules
which will be available to all missions.
We believe that modular structures will
contribute to the efficient set up of
future UN Mission HQ and Office
facilities. From ESDC’s point of view
O-form design consisting of modules
modularization will prevent most of the
The main arguments for such steel problems known in missions as well as
modules are: saving costs and resources to the
organization.
1) Flexibility in layout design and
constellation;
Please provide your point of view
2) Timeframe (Planning, Structural concerning MODULARIZATION as
Design and Execution Process is your opinion matters. Send your
much faster). The productivity feedback to esdc@unlb.org or type into
opportunities can be best addressed the chat tool in the various ESDC
managed Groove workspaces or the
in off-site fabrication with a
Sharepoint Engineering Database!
reduction of actual on-site time and
on-site construction;
In addition, the ESDC established a
3) Material price for structural steel is MINUSTAH Workspace (Groove)
further increasing but the overall including virtual Helpdesk, supported
impact on the total costs is minimal for the Turnkey Solution to ‘Construct a
as the dimension of the required Seismic Resistant Prefabricated 155man
steel frames are filigree compared Military Camp’ and provided urgently
to earthquake proof concrete required design for various sizes of
camps directly to UNHQ, NY.
structures. Also, steel has the
highest strength-to-weight ratio of
any construction material;
4) Only Basic Equipment and
Assembly Skills are required;
5) Durability, as modular buildings
are structurally sound and can be
set up temporary and/or semi
permanent for more than 30 years;
MINUSTAH 200man tent/softwall camp
6) Consequently, Costs are low due to
all these factors compared to
regular steel or concrete structures;
7) Environmental factors – reduced
Carbon Footprint;
8) MOSS and Occupational H&S
compliance according to current
MINUSTAH requirements;
9) Overall Representation of the UN;
Part of the MINUSTAH Engineering Team
10) Potential Psychological factors.
Currently, MINUSTAH is considering
our steel module design proposal as an
alternative solution.
. . . . . . . . . . . 3
April 2010 ESDC-Newsletter

The home page contains the most THE

THE ENGINEERING SHAREPOINT “RECENT UPDATES” in the central
area, “WELCOME” information on the GROOVE PLANET
DATABAS E top, useful “QUICK LINKS” on the
upper right column and “TOP 10 Resistance is futile!
DOWNLOADS” on the bottom of the
Up and running…?! same column. Pamela Treveri

Pamela Treveri
VARIOUS TABS
Almost four months after embedding
the Engineering Database into the web- WELCOME
based Sharepoint system, Engineering

STRUCTURE
QUICK
staff from most of the missions have LINKS

been provided with an account.
The ESDC connected UNHQ and the
following field missions so far:
MONUC, MONUC Entebbe Support
Base, UNIFIL, UNIPSIL, UNMIL,
MINUSTAH, UNDOF, BINUB,
UNFICYP, UNMOGIP, UNTSO,
UNMIK and MINURCAT, planning to
complete the overall connection over
the next months.
The newly established SharePoint
Engineering Database currently consists
of more than 17 GB of data.
Fully functional, up and running all over
the connected places, it has also been
tested by ESDC staff themselves within
MINUSTAH and MONUC during our
TDY period. Even though the last four
months have been our testing phase,
connecting users, processing data and
becoming familiar with the system, the
ESDC acknowledges that the home
page requests per day are continuously
increasing, as shown below in the
statistics of March:
FOLDER
RECENT UPDATES
TOP 10
DOWN
LOADS
Home page: general overview
There are also several tabs on the top,
with other useful features, such as the
“SEARCH” function, (which helps
users to find files by key words or file
extension, etc..), the “DISCUSSION
BOARD” (which helps users to
exchange information or to provide
feedback). Some parts are still under
development, such as the “ONLINE
LIBRARY” and the “ONLINE
TEMPLATES”. The ESDC is confident
that once all missions are connected and
the standards are procured and
published in the Online Library, the
number of home page requests will
substantially rise.
The ESDC GROOVE Collective
Two years after the introduction of the
first ever Engineering Virtual
Workspaces using Groove software,
and the implementation of the ESDC
COLLECTIVE, we can say that we
continue to connect more engineering
staff from different missions and have
been upgrading users to Groove 2007.
One of the great benefits of connecting
users to Groove 2007 is that we can link
documents from the various Groove
Workspace(s) to the SharePoint
Engineering Database. Groove
continues to work as the Helpdesk
Platform for several missions.
Over the past months, the ESDC opened
new specific workspaces in support of
MINUSTAH (mainly for data exchange
between UNHQ and ESDC) and
MONUC (for the Integrated Mission
Headquarters Project in Kinshasa).

Discussion Board

How to access SharePoint?

It’s easy, just follow these easy
instructions:

• Follow the link: http://esdc.dfs.un.org

Home page requests per day: March 2010
• Next screen will prompt you for User MONUC Workspace: welcome page

The SharePoint Engineering Database Name and Password.

home page design consists of a tree
folder structure, with reference data
sorted by topics.
Unfortunately, the ESDC had to strictly
[Your user name is your network
implement the 60 day rule, meaning that
credentials which you use to log in to
everybody will automatically be
your office computer. Press ctrl + alt
suspended from any workspace if not
+ del to find your user name.]

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April 2010
accessed at least once within 60 days.
Due to this reason the ESDC
workspaces are suffering quite heavy
fluctuation as we are gaining new
members on one hand but loosing old
members on the other. However, you
can always re-join any workspace at any
time as needed.
The ESDC recommends that all staff
with a Groove account should log in at
least once every 60 days, in order to
prevent time consuming downloading of
the workspace if needed.
Please be informed that if you want to
have access to either Groove or to the
Engineering Database, please send your
request to: esdc@unlb.org
The new integrated
MISSION, HQ &
CAMP PLANNING
TEMPLATES
The latest news!
Christian Henze
The ESDC recently developed and
released the Camp Planning Template
V1-09-rev.02 and the Integrated
Mission Planning Template (V1-08),
providing all required numbers in order
to, e.g. better plan your budget,
standardize all design, prepare layout
plans, organize suitable sites, order all
required items from existing systems
contracts/SDS or to prepare local
systems contracts, etc.
Again, all feedback from missions has
been implemented into these templates,
which are more advanced than their
predecessors, but still as easy to handle.
The philosophy that complete and
reliable numbers have to be provided on
the basis of either very limited or
detailed information proved to be the
most efficient concept.
The new release of the detached Trial
Camp Planning Template (V1-09-
rev.02) Version comes with an inbuilt
Bill of Quantities automatically
3 please consider the environment before printing this newsletter
calculated, which can be easily
modified by the mission engineer.
ESDC Camp Planning Template V 1-09
Consequently, together with the
implementation of the new web based
database, the ESDC will be able to
directly link every systems contract,
amendment, layout plan, SOR/SOW,
specification, manual and drawing to
the new Engineering Sharepoint,
which was impossible with the old
Lotus Notes-based Database.
BoQ ESDC Camp Planning Template V 1-09 rev.02
Furthermore, we developed an
AutoCAD Template with 3D samples of
. . . . . . . . . . .
ESDC-Newsletter
all facilities/equipment we currently
have in SDS, or available from Systems
Contracts. This AutoCAD template
enables even engineers with very basic
AutoCAD skills to easily design green
field HQ and camps.
3D Templates available for AutoCAD V 2000, 2004, 2009
AutoCAD 3D Layout 300man Camp based on CPT V1-09-rev.2
All templates are available as download
in the Engineering Sharepoint and
various ESDC Groove Workspaces.
In summary, the templates are important
tools to support Engineering Sections in
field missions to standardize and
improve their design, streamline assets
and equipment, provide easy access to
information and expertise, and increase
savings in costs and time.
Where is my camp?
The new SOR Templates
Paola De Mauro
The ESDC is developing Standardized
Statement of Requirements (SOR) for
outsourcing the construction of
engineering installations in field
missions. This SOR facilitates the
implementation of urgently needed
works where missions need to be set up
or substantially expanded.
5
April 2010 ESDC-Newsletter

At the present stage the SOR for
outsourcing construction works cover
basic camp installations such as:
erection of prefabricated buildings
(single, three and six module);
erection of ablution units;
construction of septic tanks and
soakage pits;
construction of pathways/ walkways;
erection of T-walls;
construction of generator retainer
basins.
The Design Packages have been
released as “trial versions” and are
already available in the ESDC (Groove)
Workspace and the SharePoint
Engineering Database.
The ESDC encourages all missions to
provide feedback on how to improve or
modify these design packages.
With such precious contribution of all
our missions’ colleagues the trial
versions will be periodically updated
and improved.
What’s up in the
Rauhalahti, Chief Logistics Operations
UNLB, we are coming to the conclusion
that a ‘Seacon Modification Set’ for our
huge amounts of not/under-utilized sea-
containers might be very useful.
The idea is to modify the sea-container
at both ends (not on the sides, top or
bottom) in order to be able to easily re-
use these containers for their original
purpose later on.
This ‘seacon modification set’ would
then, e.g. consist of doors and windows
on one or both ends including dividing
panel, connectors, PVC-floor, paint,
AC, electrical- and lighting system, sun
protection, optional photovoltaic etc..,
in order to easily set up 1x 14sqm or 2x
7sqm office- and/or dormitory
accommodation.
2x 7sqm Seacon Modification Set
use such structures by, e.g. surrounding
the building with barriers/gabions and
placing overhead protection on top.
We would like to invite all missions to
provide their points of view and ideas.
Please submit your feedback to
esdc@unlb.org or type it straight into
the chat of one of the various ESDC
managed Groove workspaces.
Topic: UNHQ Support
Recently, the ESDC supported the
Engineering Section in NY as part of
the evaluation team for the RFPG 502
‘New Generation Prefabs’. In this
regard, the ESDC reviewed and
evaluated 13 different technical
proposals. We hope to have this new
systems contract in place soon.
Topic: Presentations to Visitors
The ESDC as part of UNLB is
oftentimes tasked to present our unit
and our achievements to high ranking
visitors and delegations. The ESDC sees
this as great opportunity to provide an
insight into Engineering and the

As in most of the missions sea-

challenges, that Engineering Sections
are facing in missions and in particular
ESDC? containers are often not utilized or are
filled with materials that could also be
start-ups.

Christian Henze stored outside/elsewhere, we could

Topic: New Staff Member
Currently the ESDC is in process to
recruit a new staff member who has
been pre-selected by Personnel from the
newly approved FCRB roster. We are
looking forward to having our new
colleague on board soon.
In this regard we would like to state
that, even if we have been lucky with
our pre-selected candidates; the ESDC
would like all Engineering Sections in
Field Missions to have direct access to
the new FCRB roster in order to select
the appropriate qualified staff amongst
all available candidates.
create stackable office- and dormitory
accommodation easily with unused
resources already available in the field.
In this regard, we should not forget that
the current average price for a 20’ sea-
container is almost 4000,- USD. In
addition, such buildings would be
already pretty much earthquake and
storm/hurricane resistant. Visit of Ms. Yumiko Yamashita, Permanent Mission of Japan
Topic: ESDC back in UNSOA
By end of April the ESDC will be back
in UNSOA to assist our colleagues in
the first ever DFS field mission.

Topic: ‘Seacon Modification Set’

Discussing engineering topics with our
counterparts and friends, in this
particular case with Mr. Paul Kilmartin,
Chief Engineer UNFYCIP (who
actually had the idea) and Mr. Juha
Seacon Modification Set - Triple Stacked
By adding insulation (e.g. unused prefab
panels), platforms, staircases and
roofing as required; complex buildings
could be rapidly set up. Also, missions
with tough Security requirements could Christopher Herloff Petersen, Chief Engineer UNSOA, Mogadishu

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