No_1_1959 — Page 36

•TRAJAN'S

COLUMN ·

NEWS

...

NOTES

TOPICS

METERS OR DISCS?

the

driver himself and must be clearly be a lot to be said for curtain wall. visible to the patrolling traffic officer. ing its light weight should save on This system enables cars to be parked the structure; its thin section means close together, as spaces (related to a few more inches of available floor the largest size) do not have to be space, and faster building should mean delineated. It is also working success- earlier occupancy and extra rent. fully in Rome, Strasbourg, Salzburg But it has weaknesses, too. Any wall and might be tried here. After all, must meet a number of requirements Government are not going to It must keep out the weather rain, make a worth while revenue out of wind, sun. Here in Hong Kong it parking meters, so they presumably must also keep in the lower tempera- have the interests of the motoring tures produced at considerable expense public at heart in instituting any by air-conditioning. It must conform change. As for the TRAJAN limousine, to fire resistance requirements; it must we have bought ourselves a $40 share be long lasting with reasonable main- of the Star Ferry Park and still very tenance. Does curtain walling meet often have to brave the oven-like all these requirements under Hong interior of a car on the roof. Can Kong conditions?

Can Kong conditions? So far as keeping more floors be added, ad infinitum?

BYE-LAW HOUSING IN

HONG KONG

out the weather is concerned, the multitude of joints, both vertical and horizontal, present a hazard. The heavier run-off of rain, compared Under section 4 of the Copyright with that on a building which has a Act of 1956, in the United Kingdom, porous finish, must not find a weak the author of plans and drawings is spot in these joints, either when new entitled to the copyright subsisting in or in the years to come, and so far such work. We wonder if such a law there seems to be no mastic or joint- Every installation of parking meters elsewhere in the world has excited can be applied to this Colony. For ing compound with a stability and there is a horrifying development in violent opposition from the motorist

permanence which will continuously tenement house construction, especial- and organised motoring bodies. It is

open and close with the thermal equally true to say that whenever ly in Kowloon, brought about by the

movement encountered in our climate parking meters have been installed Building Regulations, whereby all of extremes. There is no doubt that they have quickly attracted the en buildings get built as alike as two

thusiastic support of the very people who opposed them.

peas, rooms,

in plan and elevation.

Small

in the right place some very fine architecture can be produced by the

minimum ceiling and beam In Hong Kong, heights, metal windows and doors use of curtain walling; one of its

as is a local characteristic, the usual

which open on to a verandah carried greatest assets being the ease of the violent opposition has not been present; out over the pavement without ver- use of permanent colour. A pity Tak we all know and accept this sort of thing as being for our own good. But tical supports, and the verandah balus- Shing House is so grey.

STIFF LETTER

trade of brick, rendered, and of such the way the parking bays have been

a height that a standard window can set out seems so wasteful that we are

be installed after the occupation per: architecture would be suitably com- In the hope that Hong Kong's wondering just where the displaced vehicles will now find a home. Cars mit has been granted. This type of architecture would be suitably com- that for the past year or two have

tenement design and construction is memorated, we examined the winning been parked at a diagonal to the side- just as much a product of the Build- designs for the Colony's new stamps walk are now made to lie parallel to ings Ordinance as were the slum areas of the industrial towns in northern it, usually occupying the space pre-

a

with more than the usual interest of non-philatelist. But apart from viously taken up by three. And the England, when the Model Building the Supreme Court and of the Banks, rather hack drawings of part of city

Bye-laws dictated of space, hygiene, layout and construc- this aspect of present day Hong Kong hundred or so cars into the already tion. They are just as likely to be- has been quite neglected. In fact, the overpopulated streets. In Paris. where (for some reason only known come similar slums, too, as the blocks winning designs are singularly lacking seldom have any communal amenity fussy, corny, and poor in design in contemporary feeling; they are to Parisiennes) the authorities are or relief to the high density dwelling quality. They are out of date before

factor.

legally prohibited from making a charge for parking in the streets,

they are printed. Especially the let- they have devised a system whereby THE ALUMINIUM CURTAIN tering. These stamps will get into a cardboard disc with a revolving So we have at last got our first real the hands of civic and urban authori- circular piece stapled to the middle Curtain Walling job in the Colony, ties, industrialists, potential tourists is displayed inside the windscreen of The grey facade of the new Tak Shing and traders, and they should be de- a parked car. This disc shows the building next to Jardine House on signed to encourage an active interest time of arrival and the time at which Des Voeux Road has gone up with in the Colony. Lettering associated it should leave parking being allow- the precision expected of a machine- with such articles is a public service ed for a given period only, depending made product and it will soon take its and the public service which is most on the zone in which the vehicle is rightful place as one of the city's often in the public eye; the much- left. The disc is adjusted by the architectural sights. There seems to maligned PWD have of late given us,

32

THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER

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VOLUME 14, NUMBER 1