No_6_June_1969 — Page 14

Brussells rebuilding includes 250-room hotel

Extensive works now in progress in the Belgian capital, which are slowly changing the city's ap- pearance, include the construction of a complex which will completely transform the Rue de la Loi. The development is directly opposite the premises of the European Economic Community.

One of the main buildings of the complex will be a luxury hotel with 250 rooms and 16 floors. Plans for this have been drawn up by the Belgian architects, Jaques Cuisinier and Serge Lebrun,

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BALELILIUI 2.11K

Brussells luxury hotel

Nuttu En 1: C

AMA

working in co-operation with the British firm Bro- nek, Katz and Vaughan. The hotel will include banqueting halls, restaurants and bars.

Contractors for the US$50 million project, which is being built for Grand Metropolitan Hotels Ltd., Britain, are Socol of Brussells.

British architect wins Reynolds award

A Montreal building designed with the help of a computer and believed to be the world's largest space-frame structure has been honoured by the US$25,000 R.S. Reynolds Memorial Award for 1969.

The American Institute of Architects has an- nounced that an English architect, 39-year-old Boyd Auger of London, will be the recipient of the 13th annual international Reynolds Award for 'a signifi- cant work of architecture in the creation of which aluminium has been an important contributing factor'.

He was selected by an AIA jury for design of the Gyrotron structures housing the major entertain- ment ride for the permanent Man and His World Exposition, originally Expo 67.

Mr. Auger credits a computer with a major sup-

porting role in his design. The programmed struc- tural analysis took two hours of computer time, the equivalent of the computations which 30,000 men could make in their lifetimes.

The Gyrotron structures consist of two space frames, basically pyramidal in shape but with in- verted basis for minimum ground area, each sup- porting an enclosed building. The space frames are formed of some 9,000 aluminum tubes, each 16 ft. long and 6 in. in diameter, for a total of about 27 miles of tubing linked by a specially developed joint. One is a giant structure supporting, within its 'lace-like' exterior, an enclosed pyramid of almost 1,000,000 cu. ft. formed by panels of 4 in. thick honeycomb paper sandwiched between aluminum sheet. The second structure is similar in form but much smaller.

The award-winning Gyrotron structures were Mr. Auger's first major building project. Previously he had specialized in prefabricated housing systems. A native Londoner, he was chartered by the Insti- tution of Civil Engineers in 1957 and by the RIBA in 1960. He received an engineering degree from the University of London and did postgraduate work at the Imperial College of Science and Tech- nology in London. In 1957 he won the Leverhulme European Research Award to work and study in Italy, and he studied architecture and town plan- ning at Rome University.

World Trade Centre progress

The framework for the giant World Trade Cen- tre building is taking shape at Hamamatsucho in Tokyo, where the monorail to Haneda Airport be- gins. When completed in 1970, it will have 40

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World Trade Centre under construction

storeys above ground and three basements to be- come the tallest building in the Orient.

Fuji steel H-shapes form the framework and silver alloy galvanised steel deck plates are being used as flooring. The building is believed to be the first to use such deck plates.

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Far East BUILDER, June 1969