NEW PLYMOUTH PROGRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1925, Page 11

NEW PLYMOUTH PROGRESS.

C. C. WARD'S ADDITIONS. .A BUSINESS ARCADE. Three big plate glass windows, extending almost the whole width of the building, provide an attractive front to the additions to Messrs C. C. Ward, Ltd.'s premises in Currie Street, the attractiveness of the building being heightened by the view the passer-by is able to obtain of a well stocked and busy interior. The additions are two i storeys high and join the shop fronting Devon Street, the whole forming an arcade, and giving, as it were, two main entrances to the shop, one in Currie Street and one in Devon Street. Over 3000 square feet of additional floor space is afforded by the additions. On the ground floor a few steps adjoining the windows give access to a raised floor, on which will be displayed frocks, costumes, underwear, and, in fact, everything appertaining to the outfitting of ladies. At the far end, the Manchester department will be housed. A wide dressed rimu staircase leads at an easy angle to the upper storey, which is to be used as a mantle and millinery showroom. From this floor a small door provides access to rooms in the old building, where reserve stocks of everyday articles are stored. There are several special features about the new premises of more than passing interest. One is the bountiful supply of natural light. The plate-glass windows in the front of both storeys are the principal .sources of light into the building, and evenness of distribution is. afforded by a row of smaller windows at the top of a side wall on each floor. Part, of the fittings comprises plate glass counters, under which stocks can be effectively displayed. The new showrot ms are finished in white plaster with ornamental ceilings. To celebrate the opening of the additions the firm is inaugurating a.big sale today. Messrs Messenger, Griffiths and Taylor were the architects, and Messrs J. T. Julian and Sous, Ltd., the contractors. BUILDING TOPICS. TYPES OF HOUSES. Speaking of the extent to which prejudice hinders the, spread of new building methods, an English, authority observed the other day that on a . recent visit to America he learned that that country last , year made 6000 million bricks and turned out, concrete blocks grid slabs in a proportion of about fiftyfifty. to bricks. In Britain, lie added, there would be about twenty pel- cent concrete to 80 per cent bricks, but he was so confident as to say that in five years’ time Britain would have reached the position that America was in now, and that in ten years’ time the American proportion of brickwork would have .been reduced ..to. twenty per cent, and relative use of new materials and new methods showing a. proportionate increase. A type of house in which cork slabs are used has been developed by Messrs Dorman) Long and Co., London. The frame of the house is steel, weighing 2 tons. The walls are made of concrete with an insulation core composed' of slabs of compressed cork. An experimental pair of these houses is now being erected at. Betteshanger. The slabs -are pressed,, and .(lien backed, a solid block ; which, capnot.be, set,on, fire ,by, the direct flame of a blow lamp- The .concrete is applied on wire reinforcement by a cement gun to the thickness of l’/ 2 in on the external wall. Many of the .opinions expressed in Britain for or against steel houses have emanated from those wiho are interested in that form, or in other and competing forms, of house construction. Additional interest is given on that account to the presumably impartial opinion expressed by Dr. William Robertson, medical officer of health to the City of Edinburgh, that there is no one who would not be delighted to live in a steel house. Dr. Robertson added that in his experience hospitals of corrugated iron lined with wood (a type of building familiar in this country and Which might be described as a primitive progenitor of the modern steel house) were as good and comfortable as when erected thirty years ago. There does not seem to be any doubt that a steel house can be a very comfortable dwelling. What, does seem to be ,still in a measure open to question is whether such a house can be built and maintained over a period of years at lower cost than a house in brick or concrete.