BUILDING PROGRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1925, Page 11

BUILDING PROGRESS.

MOVING EASTWARDS. SHOPS IN NEW PLYMOUTH. EXPANSION TOWARDS STRANDON. During the last few years there has been a noticeable tendency in New Plymouth for the business centre of the town to move gradually eastwards towards Strandon, and the erection of the commodious two-storied block of buildings at present being built for Mr. J. McNeill at the intersection of Devon and Eliot Streets is but another step in this direction. Occupying a frontage of 98 feet along Eliot, Street and 87 feet along Devon Street, the block, on its ground floor, comprises three shops, while in the upper storey are three suites of apartments. The erection of an additional block of two shops and six upstairs rooms is to be proceeded with on the adjoining section of 40 feet frontage as soon as the main building is completed, so that the finished block* will comprise five shops below and nineteen rooms upstairs. A ratUtr novel effect in design is produced by the white cement exterior finish, relieved by wreath designs and featured by a large, suspended verandah and the seven, semi-chalet, bay windows of the upper storey. The building is concrete throughout, and rimu-lined inside, the .Jiving rooms being finished in stained and knotted Oregon. The upstairs suites are particularly attractive, and replete with every convenience. Each is a separate entity, completely cut off fiom its neighbours. Access is gained by three separate front stairways leading from the street, and. each has a separate fire escape stairway at the rear. As practically a third of the building will be occupied by a medical practitioner, what would have been the shop underneath, is being fitted up as a wait-ing-room, consulting room and dispensaiy, the consulting room being divided from the others by pumice-filled, soundproof walls. The corresponding suite upstairs is fitted with an extra room, and has been finished rather more elaborately than the others. Artistically designed wallpapers and the dark effect of the stained Oregon merge aloft into the whiteness of arctic fibrous plaster ceilings. Every room is fitted with electric light and heating points, while a special feature of the commodious sitting rooms and one stated to be quite novel to New Plymouth is the provision of tiled fireplaces, in the centre of which are electrical rectangular heating surfaces framed by copper frames, which are themselves set into the tiles. Each kitchen has a gas stove, and hot water js obtainable from caliphonts for both basins and sink. The rooms are fitted, on a generous scale with cupboard space, all the doors being worked on the horizontal sliding system. Below, the shops are well fitted up and are roomy. The shop fronts are finished with brown tiles up to a height of four feet, with long mirrors between each set of show windows. The verandah provides ample protection from the weather with its deep outside eaves, and on its under surface is lined with arctic fibrous plaster. Mr. J. C. Rowe, of New Plymouth, is the builder.

SMALL STORE SHOP FRONTS INCREASING DISPLAY FRONTAGE. From the standpoint of the architect, the problem of designing display fronts for small stores and shops is divided into two basic parts. The first of these, is primarily a problem of architectural design in which the si'op front as an integral part of the facade composition as to be architectural in its nature, with opportunities for the actual display of goods as perhaps a feature secondary to the pleasing appearance of the exterior. For stores and shops of this nature the fronts are usually developed from designs based on a period precedent, and are often composed of carefully detailed architectural entrances with window surfaces broken into small panes and recesses. The second part of the problem is to provide large areas of unbroken display window space, or to provide recessed or arcaded shop fronts when extensive displays are required for comparatively narrow lot frontages common in cities and towns. The great increase in land values throughout the commercial districts of larger cities and towns has brought about a condition under which the area of the individual store or shop has been reduced to the minimum, particularly the width of its frontage. At the same time requirements for almost all types of merchandise display have grown, so that the natural solution of the problem has been the development of carefully planned shop windows, wherein an effort lias been, made to increase the actual footage available for display windows, and by well planned recesses and the use of the so-called “island” show windows to obtain a display frontage of three of four times the number of linear feet represented by the actual width of tne store. The introduction of practical types of metal store fronts, in the construction of which large sheets of plate glass are held in position by specially designed, metal mouldings or muntins, has made possible the provision of attractive, efficient store fronts, in which full advantage can be given to the display requirements. From the merchandising point of view, and also from that of reducing the depreciation and breakage factors, these metal and glass store fronts are unquestionably far better than anything else-.which has yet been devised to serve this purpose. A careful study of this flexible method of designing shop fronts will indicate to the architect several points which might be overlooked in a hasty examination. In the first place, there are available in stock many well designed metal mouldings which can be incorporated -in either the simple or the complicated shop front design. Show windows of all sizes and shapes ean be built up. according to the architect’s wishes, and with the recessed effects which are possible there is no limit to the practical carrying out of almost any architectural scheme, with several added advantages over the older methods of setting show windows in wood or in iron frames. These metal mouldings have been carefully designed to hold the sheets of plate glass in resilient grip, which eliminates practically all of the danger of cracking and breaking, since it permits free vibration of the glass. From the architect’s point of view there are no definite standards of de-

sign established for metal and glass show windows, but the adaptability of tffis construction i-s such that the ingenious architect can readily design straight shop fronts in large glass areas or recessed fronts on almost every type of plan, while the entire fronts thus provided may be established as an attractive part of the exterior architecture of the building. The purpose of this article is not to describle the technical details of metal and glass window construction, but to indicate the possibilities of plan and design from both the architectural and the equally important merchandising point of view to be achieved. THE TWILIGHT OF 'HIE BEDROOM. ENGLISH CUSTOM CHANGING. In England the bedroom used to be a formal, chilly apartment in which the only warmth was to be found,in the bed, aided possibly by a hot water bottle. The gas stove modified the ordeal of dressing on a winter morning. The insistence on privacy on the part of other members of the family than the ruling authorities was another step in towards the bed-sitting room and, the general use of a room with a bed in it on the lines of Continental custom. At present a good many small households start with a series of sitting-rooms, in which the couch or chesterfield becomes a bed at night. Washing is relented wholesale to the bathroom, with the consequent disappearance of all the apparatus that used to be thought necessary for this function. Lately the convertible couch has been almost entirely supplanted by the “sommier,” or divan. The box-spring was too expensive for the ordinary person. But the divan, in its capacity as sofa, starts with boxsprings, as a matter of course, and thus the English public is being slowly inducted into comfort in beds which is an axiom in Continental countries. It is the divan which has given the final death-blow to the bedroom in small households.-