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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 24, No. 12. 1961.

Basics of Design

Basics of Design

We could remedy it, though. We could tear up the lino and put down cork tiles or parquet tiles, rip off the wood veneer and sprayed surface and whitewash the walls, reorganise the lighting system and furnish the place decently. But there would still remain evidence of poor design which can only be corrected by complete re-building.

Good design would have integrated the new building with the Hunter building. It would have eliminated the institution-like corridors, and created a natural and easy flow of movement through the building, instead of hindering it with multiple swing doors. It would have made the windows the right size and the walls suitable for hanging pictures. Good design would have given the building a worthy focal point in the place of the present dark stair-dominated foyer, would have given each room a " focal point, and unity to the whole. At the moment through the cafe, is the only direct enclosed route from the west entrance to the Association office. Neither space nor materials are treated with respect, and for this there is no excuse. Good architects may he hard to come by, but if one chooses the lowest bidder then one must expect the worst.

After 25 years we have a permanent building, but it is one of which we can never be justly proud. It could have been the exception among the Hunter—Kirk hotch-potch, but as long as we students allow ourselves to be represented by men with no other system of values than the commercial major mistakes of the kind that approved this building, will continue to be made.

—R.J.M.

(Abridged.)