October_1966 — Page 41

world news

Skyscraper Block Planned Near Toronto City Hall

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TORONTO'S recently completed city hall with its familiar twin new moon shapes, will be dwarfed in a few years' time by a C$260 million skyscraper complex. planned on an adjacent site and known as the Eaton Centre development.

This will comprise a circular 500-room convention hotel sited between twin 57-storey office towers, a 69-storey block of apartments, further offices in a 32-storey tower and a seven-storey department store. Beneath the whole development area, which covers 21 acres, will be four levels of parking, subway transport and shopping.

The 69-storey block in the centre of the site will reach a height 900 ft.

It will take about 15 years to complete the scheme. Construction is planned in phases, the first of which is

Model of Eaton Centre development

expected to encompass the shops and department store, the 57-storey office towers and the hotel.

The architects are Mathers and Haldenby. Toronto. with the New York office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill acting as consultants.

Huge Construction Exhibition at Hanover in January

MORE than 400 manufacturers from the building industry in 11 European and overseas countries have booked space at the Constructa_II_International Building Trade Exhibi- tion to be staged in Hanover from January 21 to 29, 1967.

Several conferences are to be held in conjunction with the exhibition. One entitled "Philosophy and Reality of House Building and Town Planning" will discuss questions of town development and environment planning as well as

Far East Architect & Builder October, 1966

The existing Auckland Harbour Bridge and a model showing how it will look in 1969. As reported in last month's issue, the Bridge Authority has placed a £3,713,000 contract with Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd., Tokyo, to add two lanes to either side of the structure. The consulting en- gineers are Freeman, Fox and Partners, London

economic problems and the financial aspects of building. Another, "Homes and Domestic Services Today and Tomorrow" will deal with various themes such as "Socio- logical Investigation of Living, Present and Future". "Requirements for Practical Home and Dwelling Forms" and "Inferences for Domestic Services".

A further subject will be "German Prefabricated Building". Three special sessions will be devoted to: "Materials and Building with Prefabricated Parts", "Pre- fabricated Parts in Civil Engineering" and "The Position and Tasks of the Architect in Prefabricated Building".

Proceedings of Australian Planning Congress

A SPECIAL 150-page issue of the Australian Planning In- stitute Journal is to be published in November to report the proceedings of the Ninth Australian Planning Con- gress.

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The congress, held recently in Sydney, was the first Australasian symposium on planning for developing nations. More than 40 papers will be included in the November Journal. They will be in four sections: Planning in South East Asia: 2. Political and Economic Planning: 3. Technological Change and Planning Tech- nique: and 4. People and Planning.

Contributors include: E. Bacon, USA; Khalid Shibli, Pakistan: Asoka Mehta, S. B. Ray and P. C. Bose, India: W. Clark. U.K. Raul de Guzman (Philippines): _Vam Anantasant (Thailand); and Sugijanto (Indonesia). Copies are available from West Publishing Corp. Pty. Ltd.. I Barrack Street, Sydney (US$2.25 post free).

Johannesburg Bank Features Suspended Floor System

An unusual suspended floor system is incorporated in a tower block_planned for Johannesburg, South Africa.

The office tower of the proposed Standard Bank Building will be 112 ft. 6 in. square on plan and 30 storeys high with 27 similar office floors and three floors for mechanical services. Below ground there will be a five-storey basement with the main banking hall, com- puter rooms, strong room, and car parking.

The superstructure comprises a reinforced concrete core for lifts and service stairs. Surrounding suspended floors are arranged in three sections of ten floors. The external edges of the floors are suspended from a system of crossed prestressed concrete cantilevered beams which occur at three levels, each system supporting the ten floors beneath.

Suspension is by means of post-tensioned concrete hangers, of which there are two on each side of the build-

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