AIR-RAID SHELTER

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 127, 22 February 1941, Page 8

AIR-RAID SHELTER

Buildings Designed To Resist Earthquake

Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, February 21

In his presidential address to the annual meeting of the New Zealand Institute of Architects last evening, Mr. J. M. Dawson spoke of the need of giving intelligent attention io the possibility of air attack. “A move in the direction of listing buildings which are suitable for airraid shelters, or could easily be made suitable, is a work which the members of our body and the closely allied profession of engineering are qualified to undertake,” he said. “Information received from Great Britain and pictures of the effects of bombing show that by far the greater amount of damage is caused not by the direct bit, but by the propulsive and retractive forces set up by the explosion. The stresses set up in buildings by these forces are almost exactly those which structures complying with New Zealand’s Earthquake Building Code are designed to resist. It follows then that not only the basements but also every floor of the reinforced concrete and steel-frame buildings which have been erected in the Dominion during recent years would provide reasonable protection.”