HARBOUR BOARD OWNS VERY MODERN BUILDING

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28979, 21 August 1959, Page 18

HARBOUR BOARD OWNS VERY MODERN BUILDING

Domination Of City’s Eastern ci r Skyline

WHILE contemporary in design, the new building for the Lyttelton Harbour Board, to be officially opened today, will probably not be dated in the lifetime of any person living today. Its form is conventional, but not extravagantly so, its lines being simple and slender.

Built with strength, the building will doubtless outlive all alive now. Its durability has been estimated to be 200 years.

The building is the outstanding addition to the fast expanding commercial area of Christchurch. That area, for long confined to limited boundaries south of Cathedral square, is spreading. The new offices are only the second contemporary design building to be erected in Christchurch in the last 20 years. ,

The structure domnates the north eastern skyline. Besides being an investment and long needed for the growing activities of the Harbour Board, it stands as a symbol of the importance of the board in the onward march in the prosperity and development of Canterbury.

Not a penny was spared to make the building handsome, inside as well as on the exterior, and modernly equipped and serviced. Building experts say nothing has been overlooked in any detail. Admiration for the appearance—dignified, stately and substantial—of the building is general.

Its situation makes the striking building even more impressive as the newest addition to Christchurch structures. When the Harbour Board purchased the site, a two-storey home was on it; the home was well known be cause in the front garden was a choice specimen of a gingko tree.

The building overlooks one of the most attractive parts of the city. The views up and down the poplar and willow lined lawn banks of the most picturesque stretch of the Avon river are of never ending delight. Now dwarfed by the building and only a chain away, in the small triangle of Chester street, Madras street and Oxford terrace is a pretty architectural feature of the city, the Edmonds clock tower, an amenity admired by both citizens and visitors. From the building, six roads are immediately below to the north* ward. No matter what big buildings are constructed nearby in the future, the Harbour Board building will stand pre-eminent on its island site. From the upper floors, there is a magnificent vista from the hills near Motunau far north in Pegasus Bay, sweeping round from Mount Grey down the snowy foothills of the Southern Alps, right round to the Port Hills and again to Mount Pleasant, overlooking the port of Lyttelton itself and the approaches to Lyttelton harbour. Distinctive Flan Given a free hand to design a building to suit the requirements primarily of the Harbour Board yet of a size which would provide a sound investment of the board’s reserve funds and exemplify the standing of the board in commercial life of Canterbury, the architects, Messrs Hollis and Leonard, produced plans for a structure quite unlike any other existing building in the city. The end product is fully up to

the highest expectations of the board, which has expressed its appreciation by engaging Messrs Hollis and Leonard for the plans and specifications for the new Maritime Luilding in Lyttelton. In some parts of Christchurch, foundations for heavy structures have been a problem to builders and engineers. Fortunately, the corner section in Madras and Chester streets was found, under tests, to present no problems. Two bores were sunk to depths of 100 feet and 50 feet and they proved good strata right down, through shingle, pug, blue clay, and sand, with only a little peat at the lower depths. On Shingle Bank The building is founded on a bank of solid shingle, 14 feet deep. The excavations went down nine feet into the shingle. No pumping was needed, although the Avon river is only two chains away and an old water-course, originally flowing from the grounds of St. Michael’s Church at the corner of Lichfield street and Oxford terrace, once discharged into the Avon only a littje to the westward of the site. A raft foundation was used. The usual pile foundation transmits

loads to the various points but it is considered that a raft foundation gives greater flexibility for movement and makes a building more earthquake-resistant.

Slender piers make the lighting practically continuous throughout the concrete and steel-reinforced building. In between the piers and the. foundations and parapet is one big metal frame, glazed with panels of vitrolite in light blue, contrasting with the entrance surrounds on the Madras street entrance of blue pearl granite quarried in Norway and polished in Scotland. Nothing Outside No exterior pipes or fire escapes break the straight lines. Steel ribs between the windows carry reticulation for water and heating and the downpipes from the rainwater sumps on the roof. Maintenance on the exterior, as well as inside, will be reduced to a minimum throughout the life of the building by the modern features of design. The building is grand in design and colourful, too. Shell pink terrazzo is on the columns and parapet. The exterior feature is the panels of blue vitrolite which stand out from distances from which the building may be viewed. The panels are two inches thick and are pinned on pegs and in slots with bronze fasteners. The floor slabs of concrete have a thickness of seven inches. Partitions on the floors are mostly glass; they are double glazed round those sections of the offices in which bookeeping and calculating machines are operating. The only woodwork inside the building are the panels of the offices. Those of the Harbour Board are in light oak and those on the second, third and fourth floors occupied by the StandardVacuum Oil Company are in mahogany. Fast Lifts The staircase does not lead up obtrusively from the entrance hall but is towards the northern end of the building. Side by side are

two of the very latest types of lift, serving from the basement to the top floor. Each has a carrying capacity of 22501 b, or 15 persons. They arc fully automatic although they can be worked manually. They have ■ selective gearing: if a passenger I wants to travel direct to the fifth floor, he presses No. 5 floor button and the “pass” button and the lift passes the intervening floors. When the sun is shining, all the offices will be bathed in sunlight, passing through the glass partitions. At night, the building will be a prominent landmark, with the north-east corner floodlit and being viewed from Chester street tnd Madras street The motif of modernity has been carried the exterior to the interior. All the workers in the building have expressed their delight at the handsome office accommodation and the board members themselves are enjoying a luxury denied to past members. The ground floor is occupied by the board’s general office, the sub-accountant's office, and the purchasing officer’s office. The general office work will soon be increased when the board, following standard port practice, takes over the collection of its

own dues and charges, a work which up to now has been done by the Railways Department. Saving of Expease Fees paid for that service have reached £ll,OOO a year, the rate being 3J per cent., and the board will be making a substantial saving, as probably only three additions will be necessary to the office staff to deal with the business taken over. No other office workers in Christchurch have better quarters than those in the general office. The office faces the open streets and the river and on three sides it is flanked by high glass. The sections where the machines operate are soundproofed. The board room and committee room on the fifth floor have a northern aspect. As in the executive offices on the top floor, they have been furnished and carpeted with taste. The carpets are deep and soft in colour and the highlypolished dark tables in the board room are of period lounge style—without any drawers, which will compel members to take all papers away for perusal—and the chairs are covered with green brocade. Adjoining the board room is the chairman’s room where the simple furniture is of colonial style. On the western side of the building is the staff cafeteria. The contractor for the building was N. Caldwell and Company. Some a delays in construction occurred on sub-contracts but the three floors required by the tenants were available by the due date. The board employed its own clerk of works, Mr T. F. Playfair, who will also be the clerk on the Maritime building to be constructed at Lyttelton.