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63
As an engineer at Seco since 1972, I have, like
many of my 150 engineering colleagues, collabo-
rated with Philippe Samyn on numerous occasions.
Seco is a technical control bureau that acts as a
third party in the service of the whole community,
facilitating the quality management of construc-
tion projects. Founded in 1934, it is organised as
a cooperative society with, as of 2008, 189 mem-
bers. These include 90 contractors, 50 engineer-
ing consultants and 43 architects. This balanced
representation of a large number of the building
partners concerned puts the company and its
employees beyond the reach of vested interests
and guarantees total independence with respect
to its decisions.
As a very active member and administrator at Seco
since 1972, Philippe Samyn says that he has a ‘human-
ist trust in Seco’s technical skills’, thanks to the experi-
ence it has acquired from overseeing a great many
projects, and he often seeks our advice. In particular,
he has strongly urged us to develop our activities in
the areas of sustainable construction and building
site safety coordination, for which he has provided
unwavering support to our General Manager, Yves
Pianet.
4
Philippe Samyn’s initial contacts with Seco go
back to his first project, the Wing building, in Brussels’
North district. For this construction, Raymond D’Havé,
Seco’s former General Manager, decided to finance
wind tunnel testing
(figures 1)
. Generally speaking,
Seco’s technical control missions concern the design
and execution of works. They help to find the best
solutions, support the work of the design engineers
PHILIPPE SAMYN AND SECO
and architects, and technically validate the final result.
Beyond these primary activities, Seco is also active in
the area of research, standards and – in collaboration
with the
bbri
5
– technical approval and compliance
certification of construction products and systems.
The publication in 1980 of Guide des performances
du bâtiment
6
(Guide to Building Performance), which
I drew up under the guidance of Raymond D’Havé,
was the result of a research programme coordinated
by Seco and the
cstc
, with financial support from the
Institute for the Encouragement of Scientific Research
in Industry and Agriculture (
irsia
). By performance, we
mean the properties of a construction work characteris-
ing its behaviour during use, which are needed so that
it correctly fulfils its functions and which are determined
using a unified set of scientific methods applicable to
any materials and processes used (testing, measure-
ment, calculation and observation).
By specifying the performance of a building rather
than listing construction materials and processes in
the specifications, we replace an obligation of means
with an obligation of results. Various constructive
solutions may thus be compared on an equal footing,
while greater freedom may be taken with the design
in order to encourage innovation.
7
Philippe Samyn was
one of the first and most enthusiastic users of the
Guide. Beginning in 1980, working with the engineer
Benoit Mikolajcak, he developed the very first software
that allowed users to create specifications as well as
detailed summaries and estimated bills of materials,
drawing on a database of specification articles, which
were mainly taken from the Guide. Since its publication,
the contacts between Philippe Samyn and the team of
engineers at Seco who worked on it have continued
to grow. Regarding sustainable construction, Philippe
Samyn is active in implementing the Valideo certifica-
tion system drawn up by Seco and the
cstc
, who work
on it within the framework of the Belgian Construction
Certification Association (
bcca
).
8
Early on, he pointed
out the too exclusively scientific and technical nature of
the reference guide. For example, the functions of
Figures 1:
Wing building project
(01-000), Brussels
Scale model in wind tunnel
1
1