April_1971 — Page 18

Stanley helps open the most important doors in Asia.

In public institutions, hospitals, hotels, apartments, fine homes everywhere Stanley hardware represents elegance, engineering, reliability. The beautiful BB600 contract hinge, shown here, is one example of Stanley's manufacturing expertise. There are more. All help give you access to better sales.

Sole Agents: In Manila - Wm. H. Rennolds Co., Inc., P.O. Box 784; In Singapore - Dodge & Seymour (Far East) Inc., P.O. Box 154; In Bangkok - Diethelm & Co., Ltd., P.O. Box 14; In Seoul - Central Machinery Corp., Central P.O. Box 545; In Tokyo - Harada Bussan Kaisha Ltd., 644 Marunouchi Bldg.; In Taipei - Grace & Juliett Co., Ltd.; In Koza, Okinawa - Baxter Trading Co., P.O. Box 26.

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[STANLEY

helps you do things right

were anything but conventional streets, creating canyons that cut off light at the bottom and sub- jected pedestrians to all the hazards of motor traf- fic including the concentration of car fumes. New developments however are aimed to provide light for everyone and pedestrian precincts where people can walk about and shop away from all traffic. This means complexes containing high slabs of buildings, and a particular aspect of such redeve- lopment has emerged - the local wind.

In ordinary streets there is some protection from rows of building but in the new complexes the wind can make the desired precinct too uncom- fortable for anyone to enjoy.

The problem was first brought to the Building Research Station about six years ago in relation to a redevelopment project in which the chief feature was a high-rise residential block. In the nearby pedestrian precinct, however, conditions, even in nearly still weather, were poor; and in strong winds they were intolerable.

According a wind-tunnel investigation was set up with a scale model of the complex. It was found that the wind in the precinct was several times the strength of the wind in ordinary streets nearby. The wind blowing over a lower building, hit the high building, flowed down the face of it and so created a vortex in the precinct, making conditions intolerable. The solution because the complex was already built - was to roof over the precinct, which made it comfortable but had not been plan- ned by the designers and so was difficult to erect, while still maintaining other aspects of good de- sign.

Redesigning possible

Some 200 enquiries have since come to the Building Research Station in relation to new re- development complexes. In those that were already built roofing or other protection had to be added. With schemes only at the drawing-board stage it was possible to do some redesigning.

The station has gone still further and has pro- duced a more generalised design method, bringing in human requirements, aerodynamics and mete- orology (the direction and strength of wind). It was decided that a mean wind-speed of five metres per second (11.2 miles (18 kilometres) ) per hour was permissible, for speeds just above this raise dust and blow people's hair about, while still high- er speeds make it impossible to use umbrellas. A formula was derived to relate the dimensions of buildings, and their distance apart, to the change likely to be met with in local winds. Thus archi- tects have a design aid for comfort.

Meanwhile the subject of building aerodyna- mics has come into its own and further refinements of experiment will lead to even more general aids to building design.

Far East BUILDER, April 1971