Model of New York police/fire station
and stone trim. Its structure consists of fire-resistant steel frame composite construction using welded shear connectors to develop tee-beam action in concrete slabs.
Gropius to design entire town
The small town of Selb, population 20,000, in south east Germany is to be redesigned from scratch by the renowned architect Walter Gropius. He plans to demonstrate that an unattractive, unco-ordinated community can be made into an attractive place to live.
A traffic-free town centre with shops, cinemas and restaurants is to be laid out, parking facilities being provided outside the centre. Housing will be arranged in U-shaped blocks on the periphery of parkland which surrounds the entire town centre. Both the centre buildings and the apartments will be on stilts, leaving room at ground level for parking and delivery traffic.
The basis of the road network in the future Selb was worked out in co-operation with Frankfurt transport specialist Leibrand. Three main traffic arteries will converge on a ring-road round the town centre. This basis will be overlaid by a star-shaped network of footpaths and small streets extending past the ring and into the suburbs.
Pedestrians will have access to their living quar- ters through park-like scenery, while industry will be located in the west of the town with direct links to trunk roads and railway facilities.
The metamorphosis of Selb is to take place in four phases. It is estimated that about 30 years will be needed for construction work.
Community centre caters for all ages
Scandinavia's largest community centre at Skar- holmen, 12 kilometres south west of Stockholm, was inaugurated recently. Designed to serve some 300,000 regional customers, it covers an area of about 160,000 sq. metres and contains 80 shops as well as banks, post offices, restaurants, display centres, schools, apartments and a hotel. The invest- ment involved amounts to some US$80,000,000, The centre is built for the car age. It has Europe's
largest under-roof parking facility with room for 4,000 cars. Shoppers are expected to be wheel-born or come walking from the apartment building area which surrounds the shopping core. Within the cen- tre proper no cars are allowed.
For shoppers with small children there is a cen- tral nursery and some of the stores have rooms and space for youngsters. For the elderly there is a "pensioners' hotel" which contains 180 self-con- tained apartments.
The centre's heating and freezing plants are located in the same building and distribute to various parts of the centre through a 1,700 metre long culvert system. The buildings are designed without thresholds, some 600 metres of passenger conveyors being installed to aid handicapped shoppers.
G-column design contest
Architects of Ohbayashi Gumi Ltd., one of the top construction companies in Japan, have won first prize in the G-column design contest sponsored by the Kubota Iron and Machinery Works, Ltd.
Their model, called "Pavilion of Japanese Tradi- tion", was described by the judges as making "the
Pavilion of Japanese Tradition
best use of the G-column both in formative art and structural design as the result of which the construc- tional function and beauty are fully displayed". The pavilion was said to suggest many possibilities for buildings in future cities.
G-column is the steel pipe manufacted by Kubota and used to form the skeleton of ferro-concrete buildings.
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Far East BUILDER, December 1968
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