No_8_August_1968 — Page 11

18-storey office building completed in Japan

AN 18-storey building for the Daiichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. has recently been completed in Oimachi. Japan. Designed and built by Takenaka Komuten Co., Ltd.. the building occupies a site of 694,000 sq. m. at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

Heart of the complex is a slim 14-storey office tower rising above a four-storey administrative service centre and two basement floors. The complex also accommodates a dining hall, 40 units of family housing, 22 apartment houses with 18 family apartments each, 8-storey bachelor quarters, and recreational facilities consisting of a club house, a ball park, a swimming pool and tennis courts.

High-tensile steel is used for window sashes and outer pillars are covered with a granite chisel finish. The general offices have plaster walls, coated with vinyl paint, mineratone ceilings and linoleum tile floors.

18-storey Daiichi building.

Entrance halls and lobby have floors and walls surfaced with travertine and ceilings of aluminium panels

All electricity, air-conditioning and sanitary facili- ties are centrally-controlled with the aid of an electronic computer.

Two separate air-conditioning systems are installed in the building. One for the upper floors with the machine room located on the 11th floor, uses a single- duct system allowing individual control. The other is The other is a duel-duct fan coil system, for the lower floors with equipment installed in basement machine rooms.

£700,000 contract for hotel in Guyana

A £700,000 contract for the design and con- struction of a fully air-conditioned, 109-bedroom hotel at Georgetown, Guyana, has been awarded, after a

Far East BUILDER, August 1968.

Pegasus Hotel, Guyana

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design competition, to Taylor Woodrow International Ltd., UK. Pegasus Hotels of Guyana Ltd. a joint company formed by BOAC, Fortes Holdings Ltd., and the Guyana Government are the developers.

The main feature of the the Pegasus, which will be the capital's highest building, is a 120 ft. high by 90 ft. diameter circular tower block. Comprising bed- rooms and private suites, it will rise from a podium courtyard and a swimming pool in the gardens are to area containing the public rooms. An internal, open

be among other facilities.

steel and concrete composite structure with central The tower, on cased pile foundations, is to be a

fireproof core which accommodates lifts, stairs and service rooms. Sixteen double bedrooms each with their own bathroom and balcony are planned around the core on each floor.

Work on the preliminary stages has already begun on the seven-acre site and completion is scheduled by the end of 1969.

Work on interior of Sydney Opera House begins

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CONSTRUCTION of the famed Sydney Opera House has entered the third and final stage the biggest stage by far involving two-thirds of the construction programme.

It includes all the work on the interior, at present cavernous and bare, a 1,000-vehicle four-storey under- ground car park, external finishing and development work around the site. With its soaring sail-like roof shells, the Opera House, which is a third finished after nine years, stands as high as a 20-storey building.

Stage one of the project involved building the base to podium level. Stage two comprised the roof shells, two large clusters to cover the halls and foyers and a third, smaller cluster to cover the main restaurant.

An estimate of the final cost of the project is ex- pected by the end of 1968,

Japanese contractors increase overseas work

CONTRACTS worth approx. US$83 million were award- ed to Japanese contractors, for work overseas during

1967.

Some US$44.36 million or 167 per cent higher than 1966, the figures are the highest recorded since Japanese construction firms began taking part in con- struction projects outside Japan in 1954.

Japan's "big three" contractors shared the bulk of the market: Taisei Construction Co. with US$18.6 million, Kokudo Sogo Kaihatsu US$17.6 million, and Ohbayashi-Gumi US$14.1 million.

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