People Gallery

Students common room JLP01_08_072394

Durham University, Parson's Field House, Durham, County Durham. Three men reading newspapers in the students common room in Parson's Field House halls of residence at Durham University.
The Parson's Field House halls of residence were designed by the architects Bernard Taylor and Associates and were built by the Northern Region of Laing's Construction Company. Three four-storey blocks were constructed using Laingwall prefabricated concrete units, including block one which contained the main dining room and common rooms on the ground floor with study bedrooms on the upper floors, block two contained administration offices on the ground floor with bedrooms above and block three contained study bedrooms. Work on the site started in in June 1964 and was completed in June 1966 when it was handed over to the university authorities for furnishing. These buildings have subsequently been demolished

© Historic England Archive

Placing beams JLP01_08_053320

COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL, GEDLING ROAD, ARNOLD, GEDLING, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. Two workers guiding a Laingspan beam, lowered from a crane, into position on the roof of one of the blocks at Arnold County High School, during its construction.
Work began on the site in March 1958 and construction was completed for the new school term in September 1959. Laingspan was a flexible modular system of frame construction using precast pre-stressed concrete units. Laing developed the system in conjunction with the Architects and Buildings Branch of the Ministry of Education and consulting engineer A J Harris. The Arnold school was the first building for which the system was used beyond a prototype extension to Laing's own Research and Development Centre. Designed to economise on steel consumption and minimise on wet trades to speed up construction, the system went on to be used for other building types including offices and hospitals

© Historic England Archive

Installing clerestory windows JLP01_08_062292

COMMONWEALTH INSTITUTE, KENSINGTON HIGH STREET, KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA, GREATER LONDON. A worker installing window frames in the clerestory between the central and outer roof sections of the exhibition hall at the Commonwealth Institute.
Laing built the Commonwealth Institute between October 1960 and October 1962 to replace the former Imperial Institute that was to be demolished to make way for new facilities at Imperial College. The building consisted of a four-storey administrative block housing a library, restaurant, board room and conference hall and a separate two-storey b lock containing a cinema with an art gallery above, but the focus of the project was the exhibition hall with its hyperbolic paraboloid roof, the first of its kind constructed in Great Britain. The exhibition, designed by James Gardner, provided spaces where each of the Commonwealth nations could showcase their achievements and characteristics, primarily to school children as teaching aids to enliven history and geography lessons.
The shell arch of the central roof section was of reinforced concrete, cast in situ using timber formwork with rough sawn boards to provide a textured internal surface whilst the four outer "warps" were constructed using precast beams and wood wool slabs, blocks of shredded timber bound together in a cement paste and left visible from the interior. The entire roof was then clad in copper sheeting over a layer of vermiculite. It covers an area of 33, 700sqft, 183 feet square with the central section 93 feet square and ranges between 30ft high at its lowest and 80ft at the peaks

© Historic England Archive