world news
Stadium Will Have Roof Made of Plastic
FOOTBALL players and fans will be kept in the dry when a new stadium in Cologne, West Germany, is completed. The cathedral city on the Rhine has plans for Germany's first covered football stadium.
Some 75,000 spectators will be accommodated beneath the bold new roof. Made from plastic, the roof
Cologne stadium
will cover a circular area, 600 ft. in diameter. Trans- parent material will be used to cover the centre of the playing field and floodlights will be installed directly underneath the roof.
Exterior of Liverpool Cathedral Complete
THE striking new Roman Catholic Cathedral at Liverpool, England, constructed basically of reinforced concrete in the shape of a vast cone surmounted by a lantern tower, has now reached an advanced stage.
Extensive finishing and interior work including the installation of the high altar, marble flooring, stained glass and heating and ventilation systems remain to be carried out before the consecration in May, 1967.
The design was won in open competition by Mr. Frederick Gibberd, CBE, ARA, FRIBA, in 1960. Sixteen reinforced concrete trusses form a circular nave in the centre of which is the high altar, with the congregation of 3,000 grouped round on three sides. The trusses support a conical roof which is developed into a tapering tower filled with coloured glass and concrete, and this in turn is surmounted by pinnacles. The space of the tower is thus an extension of the sanctuary: externally the dominant object, the tower, expresses the most important inner space.
A requirement of the design was that there should be numerous chapels, apart from the baptistry and porches. These are provided by sixteen independent stone-faced buildings standing between the trusses and separated from them by stained glass windows, so that the structure is clearly articulated. These buildings each have identity as an individual design, but from a dis- tance they merge to become the walls of the cathedral.
Far East Architect & Builder August, 1965
Liverpool Cathedral The whole structu e, which has a total height of 290 ft., is raised above the rocky site on a podium, which provides two-level vehicular/pedestrian segregation. The lower floor under the nave of the cathedral contains a large car park, the sacristies and storage accommoda- tion: a ramp leads from the sacristies to the nave floor, behind the sanctuary. A road passes through the podium, giving access to the car park and to a porch from which a lift and stair lead to the main porch above. The consulting engineers are Lowe and Rodin, and the main contractors are Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd.
1,200 Tons of Concrete Poured in a Day
THE largest single pouring of concrete on a building contract in New Zealand was carried out earlier this year on a site in Auckland.
During a single day, 15 bulk concrete trucks carried 1,200 tons of concrete to the one-acre excavated site of the £3.7 million acute block for Auckland Hospital. A gang of 24 men with three cranes poured the concrete into the 60 ft. square core for a depth of 11 ft. The core is designed to withstand any seismic shock on the building.
When the complete hospital is finished in 1972, at a cost of about £6.5 million, it will be New Zealand's biggest building, with a floor area of more than 560,000 sq. ft.
Policy on Employment of Testing Laboratories
WHO selects and who pays the independent testing laboratory on construction projects? The question has caused some controversy in the United States and has led the leading professional organisations to issue policy
statements.
The latest has come from the American Concrete Institute. It reads:
"The independent testing laboratory that shall per- form services required by the specifications for a con- struction project shall be selected on the basis of profes- sional competence by the owner or the architect/engineer Such services as his agent and not by the contractor. shall be paid for by the owner.
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Bronze Cladding for Sydney Tower Block
THE new £A6,000,000 New South Wales State Govern- ment Offices building in Sydney (this page, April 1965 issue), whose 38-storey central tower rises to a height of 420 ft. is to be clad in bronze.
The Crane Copper and Aluminium Pty. Ltd. of
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