Technology makes office buildings obsolete

Press, 25 January 1989, Page 35

Technology makes office buildings obsolete

By

PETER MILLERSHIP

"J * NZPA London

The new technology which has revolutionised modern business is making thousands of office buildings obsolescent just a few decades after they went up. Many firms, particularly in European centres where there were construction booms after World War 11, face a tricky decision — whether to tear down outdated buildings and start again or modernise.

“Many of the buildings built in the sixties do not meet the technological requirements of the kind of businesses now operating in central London,” said David Senior, deputy director at the London Chamber of Commerce. Dieter Meurer, a planner at a Frankfurt architects, Albert Speer and Partner, said older structures were not equipped for modern technology. They could not be used as “intelligent buildings” which run on control systems. "The phenomenon is concentrated among financial institutions in the world’s trading centres,” said Ron Marsh of a firm of international consulting engineers, Ove Arup and partners. Word processors, data bases, computer dealing

terminals and their backup power generators were not catered for on most architects’ drawing boards in the 19605.

Companies have often been forced to build technical centres far from corporate headquarters. Deutsche Bank, West Germany’s largest, did this in Frankfurt.

False floors for cabling and overhead ducts for the air-conditioning the computers need have been the answer in some older buildings. This has often been the case in Paris.

But in others, particularly those built in the 19605, existing ceilings were too low and had too many columns. Also, in the rush to develop, some structures were not built strongly. In London, reforms two years ago to liberalise financial markets, known as “Big Bang,” highlighted the problems as finance houses expanded operations. Offices from the 1960 s were not suited to the open spaces and cabling needed for dealing floors where traders in shares and currencies work at rows of computer terminals.

London’s Stock Exchange building which was expanded in 1966 faced big changes after “Big Bang.”

“There were no computers in 1966, that has been the problem,” said Brian Greenstreet, the head of engineering services at the Stock Exchange. The exchange’s open outcry system of trading shares was scrapped after “Big Bang” and trading is now done by using screens and the telephone. “You just can’t imagine how much cable there is in this building. You can’t even measure it,” Greenstreet said.

Many buildings have put bulky power and air conditioning equipment on the roof.

At the hi-tech Lloyds of London headquarters, Richard Rogers, who was also co-architect of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, placed air conditioning ducts, lift machinery and plumbing on the outside of the building. Rogers provided the insurance underwriters with a distinctive exterior and a flexible interior unimpeded by service equipment to replace a building which was put up in 1958.

Architects strive now to get away from the grey anonymity of the sixties. “The sixties glass boxes look tired now,” said Greenstreet.

In Frankfurt, Mr Meurer at Albert Speer and Partner and Deutsche

Bank had taken most of its heavy high technology to a separate technical centre outside downtown Frankfurt. The technical centre was developed in the mid--19705, just five years after Deutsche built a new high-rise headquarters in the middle of Frankfurt. Since then it has built a new double-tower headquarters in the city. A spokesman said the move was mainly for reasons of space.

Some architects with an eye to the future ask if catering solely for the needs of financial institutions could cause a new wave of obsolescence as the pace of technology accelerates.

The president-elect of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Max Hutchinson, said designers must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the 1960 s by being inflexible. “The danger is that we are doing it again. There is a preference at the moment for deep space to suit current dealing methods but could this be adapted for other uses?” he asked. “There is a risk of building singularly inflexible spaces,” said Hutchinson who quoted one of his predecessors who in the 1970 s had said an architects’ goal should be “long life and loose fit.” -