NOTES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19172, 1 December 1927, Page 4

NOTES.

(By "Builder.")

"Builder" invites contributions from readers on any matters of interest which they might like to propose. Correspondence on various subjects pertaining to building will also be accepted.

Answer to correspondent—A.L.C.: No definite decisions have yet been reached with regard to this project.

Tenders, f.o.b. British port, are invited for tho supply and delivery of various equipment for new workshops for the New Zealand Railways.

Tenders close at 5 p.m. on December Bth for the extension of office building, Armagh street, for the Municipal Electricity Department.

Tenders for the formation of an asphalt basketball court in the St, Albans school grounds.will ho received up till noon, December 13th. Specifications may be seen with the headmaster.

Messrs Grecnstrect and Anderson, architects, A.M.P. buildings, invite tenders, closing at 2 p.m. next _ Wednesday, for the erection of a residence, in Kiver road, Avonside.

A permit has been taken out for a pavilion to be erected in Beckenham Park by the Beckenham Tennis Club.

Mr F. Williamson has secured the contract for the erection of a factory in Langdown's road for the Imperial Timber Company.

The first of the structural steel was being erected yesterday in the new building for the N.Z. Loan and Mercantile Agency Company at the corner of Cashel and Liverpool streets.

Increased activity in house building will be revealed by the City Council's statistics for November. last year an average of about CO permits a month was issued for dwellings, and this has probably been exceeded in the month now ended. The total value of the buildings authorised is considerably in advance of that for the corresponding month of last year.

Carpenters are rapidly repairing the damage by the recent firo at Aul&ebrook's factory. The windows facing St. Asaph street still bear a gaunt appearance, but glass will soon be restored to the sashes, and other traces of the destructive conflagration will disappear.

High above the surrounding buildings tho new roof of the Opera House is now receiving the attention of the contractors, who are speedily converting the building into a vaudeville theatre on the most up-to-date lines.

The Australian Forestry League has | in hand a big scheme for planting a purely Australian avenue right through from Sydney to the Federal capital. The hope of the Forest League is that it will bo merely a matter of time when there will bo another avenue of typically Australian trees from Melbourne, the former temporary scat of Government, to Canberra. Shire and Municipal Councils as well as individuals, through from Sydney to Canberra, are taking up enthusiastically the big scheme now in hand.

Except in the moving pictures, sub-urb-building will seldom bo seen in such active progression bb between the Hutt and the Waiwetu rivers, where, after a few weeks' absence, the visitor finds scores of new dwellings to greet his eye. In the wake of the homes come churches, schools, shops, doctors' premises, etc., with signs of more to follow. The new Waiwetu School was over-taxed from its birth, and new class-rooms were ordered before tho paint was dry.

Tho Wellington City Council has appointed' Mr H. F. Butcher, A.E.1.8.A., A.N.Z.1.A., who for some time has been employed as an assistant in the Government Architect's office, as its town planning officer. Mr Butcher is an expert with excellent qualifications and experience. Mr Butcher saw a good deal of service during the war, and studied town planning and housing at London University for three years under Professor Adshead, F.E.1.8.A., being elected Lover Prizeman in town planning in 1920, and Lever Prizeman in civic architecture in the following year, the latter course including civil engineering. For about nine months he was omployed as assistant in tho housing department of the Office of Works, London, being responsible for the preparation of several housing schemes in various parts of England. He left the department in order to continue his architectural studies with Sir Herbert Baker, A.R.A. Mr Butcher has also had experience in America.

The campaign in the United States, which has been going on for quarter of a century, to rid civic beauty and natural scenery of unsightly hoardings —ie at last producing results. Though America triplod its billboard advertising after the war, and, in a single year, spent as much as 50,000,000 dollars for all formr. of outdoor advertising, a more significant thing has happened since 1923. Thirty national advertisers have yielded to increasing prossure of public resentment against the billboard, and have agreed to restrict, in so far as possible, this use of this form of publicity to places where civic and scenic values will not be impaired. One of the largest companies also voluntarily drew up a plan for the restriction and scientific plaeing of its boards; another reconsidered its entire field for outdoor advertising.