Pages 66 & 67

66 U.C.D. and the Future

Appendix F

DETAILS OF THE HARCOURT STREET STATION SITE

Taken from the advertisements of sale which appeared in
the national press during April and May 1959

The whole block was to be offered first as one lot and failing a sale as
such, then, in the following six lots:--

LOT 1
A warehouse premises of 17,460 sq. ft. approx. together with un-
covered space of 34,740 sq. ft. approx. This property is leased to The
Irish Dunlop Co. Ltd. for a term of 10 years from the 1st March,
1953, subject to £1,600 per annum. The tenants are responsible for all
rates (R.V.., £360) and repairs. Held by Vendors in fee-simple.

LOT 2
Ground and buildings thereon at Adelaide Road leased to Auto
Services Ltd. for a term of 21 years from the 1st January, 1949,
subject to £400 per annum. The tenants are responsible for all rates
(R.V. £320) and repairs.

LOT 3
Ground and buildings thereon at 57b Harcourt Street (corner of
Harcourt Road and Harcourt Street) leased to Auto Services Ltd. for
99 years from the 4th September 1945, subject to £255 per annum.
The tenants are responsible for all rates (R.V. £270) and repairs.
These premises now comprise a modern Garage and Filling Station.
Held by Vendors, in Fee-simple.

LOT 4
Building at Hatch Street, leased to Messrs. Wilson & Co. Ltd., for a
term of 99 years from the 17th December 1957, subject to £156 per
annum. The tenants are responsible for all rates. Held by Vendors, in
Fee-simple.

LOT 5
Vaults under the station. These vaults extend to about 80,100 sq. ft.
leased to Messrs. W. & A. Gilbey Ltd., for a term of 42 years from the
29th September 1926, subject to £1,000 per annum. The tenants are
responsible for all rates (R.V. £280) and repairs.

The tenants have liberty to surrender their tenancy every seven years,
calculated from the 29th September 1926 -- i.e., next date, 29th Sep-
tember 1961. Held by Vendors, in Fee-simple.

LOT 6
Station Premises, Complete Vacant Possession, Entrance from Harcourt Street and Adelaide Road.

Covered Area, 27,500 sq. ft. approximately. Uncovered Area, 63,500
sq. ft. approximately.

These extensive premises, with their distinctive and valuable frontage
to Harcourt Street, comprise one of the most important properties to
come on the market for many years. Its prominent location on a main
thoroughfare, within a few hundred yards of the city centre, makes
this a city landmark, with exceptional advertising value. Held by
Vendors, in Fee-simple.

At the public auction on 12th June '59, the whole of the above property
was sold as one lot for a sum of £67,500.

Appendices 67

Appendix G

Extract from an address of SIR ERIC ASHBY, D.Sc.,
Sc.D., LL.D., D.L.C. sometime Vice-Chancellor of Queens
Univerity, Belfast, to a Symposium on the Design of
Teaching Laboratories in Universities and Colleges of
Advanced Technology, held on 14th March, 1958, at the
R.I.B.A., London.

Before I take visitors round my university I always explain that we are
desperately short of space. Then as we walk round I am always dismayed and
embarrassed to find most of the laboratories empty. This is the unsolved
problem. As teaching laboratories are designed at present, the efficiency of
plant-utilisation (as the Americans would call it) is deplorably low.

Here are some figures to illustrate the problem. The largest laboratory in a
science department is the elementary laboratory. It is academically more efficient
and it saves the time of the teaching staff if all elementary students can do their
practical work at the same time. But the elementary class in (say) chemistry does
only six hours practical work a week for two terms. In other science subjects the
amount of elementary practical work may be even less. Now the university is
'open' from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on five days a week and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on
Saturdays. This menas that the 'plant' is available for its purpose for a 44-hour
week. There are about 23 working weeks in the year. If we subtract lunch hours
over 23 weeks it leaves us with a net availability of 897 hours per year. These
laboratories are occupied by students for only 108 hours a year; a 'plant-
utilisation-efficiency' of 12 per cent. For 88 per cent of the university's opening
time those laboratories will be empty.

The Scottish universities and some universities in England still have
large elementary classes. Other English universities begin their courses at the
post-intermediate stage, and it might be thought that the problem of inefficient
utilisation vanishes beyond the elementary stage of teaching. But this is not
so. Many advanced courses do not require more than 12 hours a week in the
laboratory for 22 weeks. This amount of 264 hours a year: a 'plant-efficiency' of
29 per cent. In brief, it is only the honours student in the last year of his course
who occupies the laboratory for anything like most of the time it is available.

Let me illustrate this problem by one detailed example. In concerns a modern
geology separtment, and I include now not only the classes for geologists but all
held in the laboratories. The buildings contain (in addition to private rooms,
lecture rooms, workshop and stores, and a seminar-library room) three main
laboratories: one for elementary students and two (one for palaeontology ad
stratigraphy, and one for petrology and mineralogy) for advanced students. The
use of the laboratories is summarised in the accompanying table.