FLOOR SPACE

Evening Star, Issue 22633, 27 April 1937, Page 2

FLOOR SPACE

WALL THICKNESS IMPORTANT Engineering to-day is more than a handservant to architecture; the two professions are, in fact, in close and, on the whole, harmonious partnership. This fact was emphasised in a paper read by Mr E. J. Michaelson to members of the Victoria Institute of Engineers. He remarked that, in contemporary times, when building allotments were of such value—nearly £2,000 a foot in the heart of Melbourne—the practice was to make available the utmost amount of floor space. Before the advent of concrete on an extensive scale the walls of city buildings wore three to four feet thick. For that reason many apparently suitable buildings were being demolished, and modern structures erected with walls only 6in in thickness. If the additional floor space so gained was taken into consideration —returning a rental of about 7s Gel a square foot, made possible by the decreased width of walls, and multiply this by the number of stories—it could be said definitely that the engineer had rendered such reconstruction invest-' ments justifiable.