The premises of Messrs. Thos. Heiton and Co. Ltd. are situated in Poolbeg Street, Dublin, where they have carried on for many years the business of wholesale ironmongers and hardware merchants. In recent years it had become apparent that the huddle of old buildings on the site was not only wasteful in storage space but was also the cause of uneconomic working. It was therefore decided to reconstruct the warehouse on modern lines and the services of S. James Hurd, ARIBA, were obtained as architect for the new development. J. R. LOWE and B. Le C. BYRNE
A simple investigation of the behaviour of concrete columns when load is applied through a vertically embedded steel plate is reported and a means of predicting ultimate strength suitable for drawing office use is put forward. M. Holmes and Derek Bond
An investigation into the cause of failure of granolithic floor toppings has been undertaken. In this paper many of the problems encountered are discussed and recommendations are given for the design and construction of toppings. B. W. SHACKLOCK
Introducing his paper Mr. Weiss said that there was certainly one theme at least which might provoke an interesting discussion: in this almost completely unadorned theatre architecture and engineering had been compelled to find a common expression, architect and engineer had had to be tuned in to the same wavelength. How had this been achieved, and was the final product successful? He hoped that his friend, Mr. Philip Powell, who was present, would give his views on this as he was so much better able to do this than Mr. Weiss.
The Institution welcomes as its President for the Session 1963-64 Mr. F. M. Bowen, M I StructE, MICE, AssocIMechE, who takes office on 3 October.
In the investigation of the behaviour of arches the forms most often considered are the parabola and the circle, whilst from a practical aspect the parabola is the most usual form. The elementary theory of the parabolic arch is not difficult but in more advanced analysis it may be convenient to consider the arch as a sine curve. The brief analysis outlined below compares the behaviour of a suitably chosen sine curve with that of a given parabolic arch with regard to some of the more familiar properties of the latter. H. Waters
Theoretical Investigation An approximate general solution1 has been presented for contact pressures of finite beams resting on idealized models of the soil. The foundation models treated include :- (a) Winkler model of isolated springs; (b) homogeneous anisotropic half-space, isotropy being a special case (c) non-homogeneous half-space, compressibility decreasing with depth LAING BARDEN