Sympathetic blending

Press, 19 December 1984, Page 46

Sympathetic blending

For its sympathetic blending in the town’s central area and its practical and unpretentious design, the Permanent Building Society building, on the corner of East and Tancred Streets, in Ashburton, was granted a Canterbury branch award. Included in the design by architects, Charles R. Thomas and Associates, are the building society’s head office, rental offices and retail shops. Yet the upper floors are set back from the ground floor, giving respite from the traffic noise of the main street, and providing space for roof terrace and garden. The terrace and roof gardens are used by a number of local organisations for such activities as public disKand outdoor art exhiis. This also leaves free the

ground floor for retail floor space, yet the setback design of the top floors provides a pleasant visual break to the continuous line of buildings built on the street boundary. A veranda forms a balustrade for the roof garden which is glazed, and provides back natural lighting to the underside of the veranda. The jury praised the architects for their success in combining a shopping podium with a low profile office block set back from, the main street, thus continuing the scale of the existing commercial buildings. “This is a building which flatters and is sympathetic to the Ashburton central area and also provides a worth while pattern for future development,” “The public spaces,

offices and retail areas are inviting, unpretentious, but admirably suited to their intended functions.” “Straightforward planning and clearly expressed forms, materials and structure have resulted in a building contributing to and harmonising with the Ashburton townscape.”