No_9_September_1968 — Page 7

news review

First HK local officer as commissioner for housing

MR. Donald Liao Poon-huai, Housing Architect, Hong Kong Housing Authority, will become Commis- sioner for Housing when Mr J.R. Firth retires in November.

Mr. Liao, the first local officer to be promoted to this post, was appointed an architect, on contract, with the Housing Authority in March 1960, and transferred

CP

Mr. D. Liao

to the pensionable establishment in April 1963. He was appointed Acting Housing Architect the follow- ing year and was confirmed in this post in January 1966.

Born in Taiwan on October 29, 1929, Mr. Liao studied in Taiwan and Hong Kong and after matricula- tion studied at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong, graduating with the degree of B. Arch.

In 1957 he was awarded a British Council scholarship for а one-year Diploma Course in landscape design in King's College, Newcastle-on- Tyne, (University of Durham). He visited UK and Europe on a study of industrialised building methods in 1963 and undertook training in work study, man- agement, and administration procedures at centres in UK under a Government training scheme.

This month, Mr. Liao, together with Mr. Au Sik-ling, Government Structural Engineer, will repre- sent Hong Kong at a United Nations seminar in Europe on the industrialisation of housing for Asia and the Far East.

During his service with the Housing Authority Mr. Liao has worked on the Ma Tau Wai, Fuk Loi and Wo Lok Estates, and has been largely responsible under the Commissioner for Housing, for the develop- ment of the Wah Fu site and for the quarters now being built for local Government officers at Lung Cheung Road and Ngok Yue Shan.

Mongkok bank building will be column-free

SOME 130.000 sq. ft. of column-free office space will be provided in an 18-storey branch bank building being erected at Mongkok, Kowloon, for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

Due for completion in mid-1969, the structure comprises a slipformed core in the rear centre of the plot, with floors supported by 75 ft. post-tensioned concrete beams which run from front to rear and join

Far East BUILDER, September 1968.

Model of Mongkok bank building

to the mullions. Outer dimensions of the building are 75 ft. deep by a 135 ft. frontage along Nathan Road. Each floor contains 7,600 sq. ft. of offices in which the partition walls and lighting outlets can be arranged in any manner within the floor and ceiling tile grid.

The building has a basement in which the bank vaults will be located, a lower ground floor, and an upper ground floor which will serve as the main banking hall, a mezzanine and 15 floors above ground level.

Externally the windows will be canopied to cut down glare and will be glazed in grey sheet to filter strong sunlight. The lower floor windows will be equipped with electrically operated steel shutters.

Architects for the building are Palmer and Turner; air conditioning consultants, Thomas Anderson and Partners; and general contractors, Paul Y. Construction Co. Ltd,

Taiwan monument to Dr. Sun Yat-sen

WORK has begun at Jen Ai Road, Taipei, on a monument to Dr. Sun Yat-sen which will cover 10,000 sq. metres and will cost nearly NT$70 million,

The building will comprise a meeting hall to seat 3,000, four exhibition rooms of 100 sq. metres each, a 400 sq. metre library and a 1,000-person capacity youth centre. It will stand 29 metres high and will be surrounded by grassed areas and formal gardens.

The architect is Mr. T.H. Wang, and the struc- tural engineer, Mr. P.S. Sun, a direct descendant of Dr. Sun.

Plan for further Singapore satellite town

TELOK Blangah, between Pasir Panjang and the City of Singapore, is to be developed as a high-density tourist and residential town.

State and City Planning, the new planning and co-ordinating agency for physical development, is drawing up the project which covers about 1,000 acres

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