February_1970 — Page 7

world news

Australia's second-tallest building

Plans for Australia's second tallest building - a A$16 million, 500ft. office tower - were an- nounced recently. The 41-storey tower, to be built in Melbourne, will be more than 100 ft. taller than

BHP House

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any other building

in the city and about 50 ft. lower than the Australia Square tower in Sydney.

The building will be constructed on the site of the 100-year-old Men- zies Hotel at the west edge of the city. To be called BHP House it will become the head- quarters of Broken Hill Pty. Co. Ltd., which will occupy about one-third of the 603,000 sq. ft. for floor space.

The tower, de- signed by Mr. B.B. Patten of Yuncken, Freeman, will be

constructed around a steel core of four cruciform beams, 4ft. square at the bottom tapering to 2ft. square at the top. The core will support 17 lifts and a document hoist.

The top, middle and bottom of the facade will be braced by two-storey wide bands of V-shaped supports. These are designed to distribute the loads on the building's central columns and outside walls. There will be no other inside supports. The outside walls will contain the steel framework and a 0.375 in. thick skin of welded steel over 2 in. of concrete.

The walls will be completely fabricated the 159,000 sq. ft. of windows will be set directly into the walls without frames and it is expected the building will rise by a floor a week.

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Three-in-one hospital opened

A three-storey hospital opened recently at Greenwich, London, is basically three-single storey

Far East BUILDER, February 1970

hospitals, one on top of the other, with each floor a self-contained and independently operational unit, complete with all its appropriate diagnostic and treatment departments, supply centres, kit- chen and dining rooms.

The design

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by the Hospital Design Unit of the Department of Health and Social Security enabled construction to be undertaken in three phrases while an existing 670-bed hospital on the site remained fully operational throughout the re- construction.

With only one main entrance and a single cir- culation vertical point serving all departments, the

Greenwich District Hospital

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less

compact structure, occupies a 72-acre site than a third of the area usually needed for a hos- pital of corresponding size. Ribbon wards around the perimeter provide many operational advan- tages, while each ward unit of 33 beds is supervised from a central visual nursing station with tele- communication panel linking patients and staff.

Industrialised methods were used in the con- struction of the hospital to simplify and standard- ise erection principles. The structure is of precast reinforced concrete units, incorporating composite beams spanning 64ft. with steel tie member struts and hangers.

A$100 million housing development

A A$100 million agreement for a housing de- velopment project at Port Adelaide, Australia, has been signed as a joint venture between the govern- ment and private investors.

Development Finance Corporation Ltd., one of the country's largest merchant banking institu- tions, will organise the initial financing and management of the scheme. It has formed a de- velopment company, West Lakes Ltd., to raise the finance and manage the project.

The development will be at a 1,600-acre site, now swampy wasteland and sandhills, owned by the State government. It involves the construction of more than 4,000 houses, a residential hotel, a 40-acre regional shopping centre, two schools, the dredging of a lake about three miles long and covering 200 acres, a 2,000-metre rowing course, a boat basin and foreshore recreational areas.