UNIVERSITY OF LB URNS DEPARTMENT OF ITECTURE
O-
Issue No. 1 1 : September 1, 1953
The MLC Assurance Co's new 12-storey 74' x 60' offices planned for Adelaide/Edward-st cnr, Brisbane, by Messrs Bates, Smart & McCutcheon, arch'ts, Melb—in association with Messrs Conrad & Gargett, Bris—will have a steel frame, precast conc floors, complete air conditioning, & glass walls shaded by egg-crate sunbreakers. Tendering is scheduled for
"after Christmas."
• H C Sleigh Ltd's new 8-storey, 46,000 sq ft offices planned for Queen-st, Melb, by Messrs.
Bates, Smart & McCutcheon, arch'ts, will leave 4 floors for tenants.
• The Employers' Federation executive plans a businessmen's advisory panel to study, among other things, why no commercial bldgs have been erected in central Melb for 15 yrs.
• NSW is getting the benefit of the holdup in steel delivery from Newcastle which is starving building in Vic & SA.
IT One good reason for recurrent crackings in brick walls in parts of Melb'ne was unearthed by Melb Univ Eng'ring Dept, studying ground movements in conjunction with Mr G D Aitchison of CSIRO, who began the research in Adelaide: In some suburbs (W & N) the ground level rises and falls annually up to 3", they measured.
• A township of 1200 people with privately operated shops, etc, is to be built for miners at Radium Hill, SA, uranium field.
▪ The Univ of Technology at Kensington, NSW, nearing completion, demonstrates the awakened interest in sculpture & mural work of the Arch'ts' branch of the PWD. "The Falcon & the Dove", a 40' high open sculptural piece in copper by Mr. Tom Bass, will be supported some inches out from a tall sandstone fin.
A recreation hall, latest stage in the £80,000 extensions at the Tasmanian Chest
Hospital, will be completed this month. Because of a greater number of TB cases disclosed by compulsory examinations, the accommodation has been raised from 100 to 124 beds.
• Syd CC launched an £843,000 parking scheme including 5 pigeon-hole (elevator) parking stations & 2 open-deck (ramped) stations. Estimated bldg cost—£400 a car.
• Syd CC disallowed precast post-tensioned concrete proposed by Mr P 0 Miller, eng'r (in collaboration with Mr. Frank Cavilier, arch't) on the remodelling of Pfahlert's Hotel, Margaret-st, Syd (where Henry Lawson used to drink) . The job is proceeding in
comparatively orthodox construction.
IT Berger House in Elizabeth-st, Syd (16-storey co-op office enterprise which packed up last Feb, see C-S Mar) is under way again after a change of management, bldrs & arch'ts:
now Messrs. Stephenson & Turner (who are preparing new working drawings) with L J Hooker Ltd as managing agents. Most space is now subscribed for, but it seems the original shareholders will have to pay more or take less area.
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An £18,394 hospital in Mt Gambier stone began at Keith, SA; Gordon C Brown, arch't;A W Baulderstone, bldrs.
IT The SA Director of Works promised that work will begin this year on "Australia's most modern" airport operations & terminal building at West Beach.
11 10 days through wet weather is the only time lost so far on the 7-storey steel-frame AMP offices at North Sydney, building since April to strict schedule by Concrete Const'ns Pty Ltd to finish next March 18. Plastic surfaced plywood forming is one of time-savers helping to make it the "quickest job since 1939." There have been no hold-ups due to shortages or stoppages. (Stephenson & Turner, archts; Stanley & Llewellyn, engn'rs) .
IT Mrs Charles Gregory, architect wife of the visiting US Fulbright Professor, went home with plans & details of pre-school centres in ACT & Vic—a type of building & social service in which she found Australia "so far ahead of USA it's silly."
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The Vic Minister for Education (Mr Shepherd) appealed to builders to build the 1 8-school programme rapidly. Gladly, replied the MBA, if the Govt promises to speed up its produc- tion of the drawings.(I A 34-bedrm "Hotel Burleigh" at Finsbury, SA, was one of the many new hotels which some sanguine observers expected to see shooting up after the recent removal of
controls, (It was to have been "the most modern in SA" with air conditioning & "luxury"
finish.) But the promoters, SA Brewing Co, discovering that the estimated cost had now risen to 3 times the 1946 estimate of £40,000, have cancelled the whole scheme.
(j The Small Homes Bureau (NSW) will open on December 1; Mr. Erik Sodersten, director./
Adelaide's Small Homes Service is scheduled to open next month./Vic's Small Homes Service's
£200 competition for new designs closed yesterday.
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12 mths before scheduled completion, a giant parabolic concrete storage silo at Risdon, Tas, is taking spectacular shape over its moving formwork. i It will hold & convey for shipment 25-30,000 tons of sulphate of ammonia (a fertiliser needed by Q'land canefields) made in the plant building by Electrolytic Zinc Co to produce 55,000 tons/yr output, more than half Australia's needs. The £4-million, 50-acre plant has occupied 500 men for 21
years. When finished next Sept, it will be "one of the biggest private industrial projects ever in Tasmania."
(l The Board of Works £200,000 plan for Melb'ne is finished & being prepared for exhibition. So the Premier (Mr. Cain) got in early. Little could be done with it, he said.
The Govt is more concerned with food, water, power & fuel projects.
• Messrs. Bunning & Madden, arch'ts, who won the Anzac House, Syd, competition for a limit-height Martin-PI building in 1947, have produced 2 their £300,000 design for the new site in College-st: lower by 7 floors, more imaginative by 6 years. Recessed 5' balconies run before glass-walled offices. A roof garden 132' long overlooks Hyde Park.
The steel & pre-stressed frame is faced with aluminium, porcelain enamel & travertine (R Crooks & F C Michell, struct'l engn'rs).
cl The £42-million CSR Chemicals Pty Ltd plant at Rhodes, NSW, was opened. 2,330,000 cub ft of buildings cost about £1 -m (7-8/- cub ft) . Major contractor: McDonald Const'ns.
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The giant £3z-m Victoria raw sugar mill near Ingham, Q, "largest & most modern in the S H'sphere", was opened—a year ahead of schedule.J
Brisbane's "town plan" (land use plan), bogged down in red tape & public objections, is unlikely to pull clear in less than a year—if ever.J Two tunnels marking the outer edges of the big Degraves-st pedestrian subway from Flinders-st station, Melb, were driven through. Now the 100' wide, 3,000 cub yd mass between them is being nibbled away. (McDougall & Ireland, cont'rs).
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Quotations for demolishing the Exhibition Bldg near Central Railway, Syd, ranged from £600 to £11,000.(jj
The inquiry into allegations of a timber monopoly in NSW adjourned till Oct 6.(J
NSW's grotesquely Victorian ( 1900) Royal Carriage is being renovated for the Queen's visit. /In all states flags, bunting, flowers & floodlights are being shaken out in readiness.New shields, crowns & ER's are being cut out. Architects are making offers of advice (in SA without fees) . But no attempt at design co-ordination of the displays has yet been successful anywhere.
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A 5-yr diploma course in bldg const'n "to raise SA bldrs to the same academic level as arch'ts and engn'rs" is being planned jointly for Adelaide Univ & School of Mines. It will be recognised by the Aust'n Institute of Builders.J The Sulman award was made to the Royal Swedish Legation in Canberra (C-S, July) by Messrs Peddle, Thorp & Walker from sketch plans by Mr E H G Lundquist in Sweden.
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About half the 600 houses in the SAHTrust area at Gillies Plains, SA, are completed and brightly painted. But they cannot be occupied. They are without electricity, sewerage, water & roads.(J
2 new Sydney houses are being widely discussed: 3 Mr. Walter Bunning's own home &4 one at Turramurra by Mr Harry Seidler. This features adjustable vertical sunshade louvres on a west window, interlocking metal by Wunderlich, fitted with rubber gaskets preventing wind noises. When closed they black-out completely. The operating handle & lock is on a bar connecting each bank, operated from inside through "Aquilla" sliding aluminium sashes. Cost of louvres of average height: about £12 per ft run.(~ Troubles were brewing darkly for HC's in 3 states. In NSW the "scandal" of the Lithgow estate was aired—"the costliest slum in NSW", undrained, dirty with an
"unguarded paddock of stores from which enough materials to build many new homes had been stolen" (-Mr J Chalmers, MLA) . /In Q'land, press demands grew for an investigation
"under the HC's plywood curtain" following the Zillmere mess (C-S Aug) . /In Vic political criticism of the permanently entrenched HC Architects' Panel continued & there were sounds indicating something less than complete harmony within the panel itself.
(l The Savings Bank of SA published the approved plans of its 5 new city bldg at Hindley/Bank-sts (by Messrs. Caradoc Ashton, Fisher, Woodhead & Beaumont-Smith, arch'ts), the latest & most handsome of several recently proposed slab-style bldgs. Unlike some others it is a satisfying inevitable design on its needle-like site, 21' x 212' (x 10 storeys) . The one long side to be glazed faces east. It will have sealed edge hollow glass.
Site work starts soon but tenders have not yet been called & work won't begin till early '54.
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The Vic P W D let the £62,943 tender for 2 new wings & a hall at Matthew Flinders Girls' School, Geelong, Vic, to Mr B Murphy, local bldr.(1
Arch'I students played their annual revue (Direction: Mr Peter McIntyre) at the Union Theatre 6 . For 3 nights, to packed & highly enthusiastic audiences, they parodied or demolished almost every pretension in Aust'n bldg. After the show's hilarious success plans were made to take the best acts from the last 3 revues on interstate tour at Christmas to raise funds for Melb Univ's "International House" (overseas students' hostel).• Meningie is the latest SA town to have the new metal capsule-shaped water towers (C-S Apr) : gleaming twin 60,000 gall tanks tower 80' on a hill above the town.
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100 flats in blocks of 8 to 10 in Mt Gambier stone start soon at Fullarton for the SA Housing Trust.If The longest bar in SA, 1 85' of island counter, will be in 7 Loxton Club Hotel's new 5160 sq ft bar bldg. (P R Claridge & Gunn, arch'ts; C O Juncken Ltd bldrs). Aluminium structural components will be used throughout, for walls, glazing & roof.
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Messrs Frank R Fox & Assoc'ts, industrial designers, converted 2 old shops in King-st, Sydney, into 8 a Q'land Govt Tourist Bureau. It includes sand-blasted vertical glass louvres used as partitions, indoor gardens with tropical plants, intricate murals by Melville Haysom J Pamela Macfarlane of Brisbane.J There were moves in Melb CC to rebuild dilapidated Victoria Markets. They are now busier than ever with New Aust'n customers, & a "ridiculous disgrace" to the city.
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The first Capuchin Mission in SA— 9 Assisi Hall in Newton-rd, Paradise, the first bldg for a new monastery (E A Keal, arch't)—is significant in that it seems to confirm the new acceptance by RC authorities of the modern idiom, however undistinguished itmay appear in this case. /Recent contracts in SA for Catholic institutions include "a small contemporary style church" at Frances, & a convent & school at Barmera (E A Keal, arch't) ; & schools at Beverley & Brighton (H H Jory, arch't).
J Mr W S P Godfrey, past President of the RVIA, principal of Godfrey & Spowers, one of our best-known elder arch'ts, died in Melbourne, aged 81. /Mr Yeap Geok-Kee, who graduated from Sydney Univ last year, has been granted admission into the Master's class in Architecture at Harvard Univ, Mass, USA. /Mr John Buchan & Mr Best Overend, both of the Vic HC's arch't panel, returned from overseas, & Mr Harold Bartlett left.
This £26,000 memorial hall G. library (Mr H Ruskin Rowe, arch't;
McDonald Const'ns Pty Ltd, bldrs) is now building at Knox Grammar School, Wahroonga, NSW, facing an exclusive North Shore main suburban road.
It has been described as having "striking Scottish Baronial features". It was first planned in 1946. Building controls forbade it then. Cost rises
since have forced the elimination of numerous other striking features. The acceptance by a school of the approach to architecture indicated here is the more surprising when it is known that the school does not teach litera- ture by the study of radio serials nor art by the study of comic strips.
A new hospital for the Sisters of St. John of God, Ballarat, is designed to give all wards maximum sunshine.
Architects: P. J. O'Connor and Brophy, Melbourne.
Contractors: S. J. Weir & Sons, Ballarat.
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• Interesting features of the building: the five mostly in two bed and single bed wards.
main floors will accommodate 500 beds,
CI Ground floor carries administration, out-patients, X-ray and kitchen. First floor is the midwifery floor. Second floor is partly allocated to childrens' wards. Fourth floor contains
the operating theatres and surgical wards. Remaining space is in general wards.
For maximum sunshine eight-floor balconies have been provided to the upper floors on the north side. North wings are terminated with fully glazed solariums. The hospital has its own electrical sub-station and steam generating plant and laundry. A service tunnel, with ver- tical ducts, runs under all sections of the building.
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