No_1_January_1969 — Page 31

J

Close-up of covered way between blocks

sian Government with assistance from various other countries.

Planning and construction took al- most three years and was carried out under the direction of a project manager, Mr. C.W.C. Richards, an ITU expert and a British Post Office engineer.

The centre is designed as a 'ma- chine for teaching', with its two equip ment blocks clustered with equipment

Full view of twin hostel towers

rooms and practical rooms. There are also laboratories housing exchanges, carrier and radio stations designed to simulate a cross section of the tele- communications system as a whole, and two lecture blocks providing class- rooms, and demonstration rooms.

Classrooms are equipped with a wide range of teaching amenities, in- cluding an overhead projector built into the lecturer's desk to project dia-

i

Detail of admin. block

grams on to a screen and blackout cur- trainees and an air-conditioned dining by a press button control.

Between the teaching and residen- tial units, and directly linked to them, is the catering unit with a fully-equip- ped two-section kitchen for the pre- paration of Muslim and non-Muslim food. A spacious dining hall seats 200 trainees and an airconditioned dining room seats 50 staff.

All these blocks are linked to the administration unit, which is the nu- cleus of the whole centre. Here are situated the offices of the project manager and the principal, the general office, conference room and the library on the ground floor, and on the first floor the offices of the lecturers and an editorial unit complete with its own plate making, photograph copying, printing and dark rooms.

All the buildings are constructed of in situ reinforced concrete frames and floors, with brick and Glasal infill panels. Roofing, except on the hostel towers, consists of Klip-lok galvanised roofing sheets on steel purlins sup- ported by reinforced concrete roof beams. The hostels have reinforced concrete folded plate roofs.

On all the two-storey buildings the columns are placed outside the blocks and are dimensioned and shaped to meet precisely the structural needs. These external columns, besides keep- ing the floor space clear inside the rooms, provide a deep roof overhang as a protection against sun penetration. Construction of the hostel blocks is quite novel in that each ‘arm' of the (off-set) cross is self supporting with up-turned and down-turned balanced cantilevered beams, which carry the 3 in. floor slabs, resting on the columns and built into the thickness of the 6 in. walls, while the stairs and landings are independently cantilevered from the two perforated centre walls. The five structurally independent parts are then joined together for rigidity.

Far East BUILDER, January 1969.

35