The Essence of a Strong Foundation: Part 1

Very often I hear people say “The strength of a building lies in its foundation” or “The strength of any building is dependent on the strength of the foundation on which it is built upon”. These are assertions that we definitely hear wherever there is a gist around constructions and architecture.

Incidentally, a building is being constructed near my house and even though the work started out really fast, it is taking more than a month for them to complete the foundations. This made me conclude that the owner wants to have a tall building erected on that soil.

So today, I would like to make a premise on the essence of having a strong foundation by looking at how physical buildings are structured. Please note that strong here is seen as better than a good one...wordplay!

Foundations were mostly used in reference to architecture but recently, we’ve seen a stronger use in the beauty industry. So, what is the foundation?

Put simply, it is the base of a project.

I use the word project here because, in reality, we are all building things every day. Whenever we set out to do a project, we start building…this ranges from things that affect only our lives to things that affect other people and things around us.

We are building

• our thoughts by what we put into our brains,
• our bodies by what we feast on,
• our spiritual state by what we believe or do not believe in,
• our careers by our decisions to stay or leave,
• our wealth by our financial culture,
• our families by hooking up with someone and sharing a vow to be with them,
• relationships with people around us,
• another person’s life when we teach them either as our children or as mentors,
• businesses and
• houses, of course!

Here is the interesting thing, a foundation is not the finished project but it is the first thing you put in place when you start the project. It is very obvious that it’s not every project that sees a completion date, and it might seem to be a waste if one builds a rock solid foundation but the building never shows up!

There are quite a number of factors that affect the completion of a project and not all of them come into view at the beginning. Land ownership, a pool of funds, government policies, location of the land, the integrity of the contractors and every other force majeure are some of the components that can influence a building project. If care is not taken to consider all possible factors with possible solutions provided, the project can be stopped.

In building a house, for instance, there are different phases. There is the chicken and egg situation...do I need to have a landed property before I think of something to build? Should I plan the architecture and then look for a land area to build on? Either of these could happen first and obviously, you need to have a land and a design to build a structure.

One thing is clear though, the type of soil would determine the kind of foundation that is laid on it but does not determine the height or strength of structure that makes it out.

Why is it important to have a strong foundation for whatever we want to build?
- We want to avoid casualties: permanent injuries, loss of lives and properties, waste of time, energy and other resources, etc.
- We want to invest our resources on something that would last so we need to provide it with the best support to ensure it stands the test of time.

For software developers, having a strong foundation(both in planning and in the actual development) should become a requirement since we sometimes take the role of the owner, architect and the `builder` of our applications.

I would summarize with this statement By Max Alexander of This Old House magazine.

“A proper foundation does more than just hold a house above the ground. It also keeps out moisture, insulates against the cold, and resists movement of the earth around it.”

I really like this because it acknowledges that there will always be earth movements — the trends will change, government policies will change, there would always be new technologies…so lay a foundation that will resist these shakings and still stand.

In part 2, I would go further to discuss how we can apply this in every project that we set out to do. What to consider in the planning phases and how to rebuild a faulty foundation.