There are a good number of buildings the classification of which is impossible. In some cases they appear to belong to two or three classes, or to lie midway between them, while in others they are unusual erections only called for with extreme rarity. It will be found, however, that general principles which have been discussed in previous volumes apply in almost all cases, while variations and eccentricities of requirement give an architect his best opportunities for showing initiative and personal power of grappling with difficulties. In the present chapter it is intended to pick out a few of these miscellaneous threads, without endeavouring to be in the slightest degree exhaustive - which would, in fact, be an impossibility.

Coroner's Court &C. Deptford.

Ground Floor Plan.

Ground Floor Plan.

Horace T Bonner Architect.

Fig. 165.

Such a building as the Coroner's Court at Deptford, designed by Mr. Horace T. Bonner, A.R.I.B.A. (see Fig. 165), almost belongs to the class of public buildings dealt with in Volume IV., yet it is a somewhat unusual building, containing not only the court but the ordinary disinfecting establishment found more frequently in connection with a hospital. The plan has been followed of arranging the courthouse, with its caretaker's dwelling over it, as an isolated establishment from which the mortuary and post-mortem rooms, both for infectious and noninfectious cases, can only be approached by passing across an open yard. In each case the mortuary has an inspection window, in order that the jurors may view the bodies without actually entering the mortuary chamber, while an adjacent post-mortem room has been provided for the use of pathologists. These erections are served by a yard opening out into the main street. From this there is also communication to another yard reserved for the disinfection of clothing in all cases of infectious illness within the borough. This would be brought in closed vans down the back street, passed into the receiving room, through the disinfector, and thence to the delivery - room, where it would be sorted and then handed into different vans for conveyance back to the owners. A stable is provided in connection with this yard, with the necessary van sheds, in which presumably an ambulance would also be kept. A rather unusual addition to this group of buildings is an isolation shelter arranged in two floors, the lower for men and the upper for women, entirely separate and served by different entrances.

Buildings which are erected for the purpose of carrying on special industries are always of a highly specialistic character, and difficult to classify. Several have already been illustrated when dealing earlier in this volume with the equipment of certain well-known classes of buildings of this type. All, however, conform to this general rule, that the rooms or departments must be so arranged that the goods may be passed along in regular sequence through the various processes which they have to undergo, entering as raw material and passing out as finished products, with as little handling as possible and no confusion. If there be only one door the work has, as it were, to circle, so as to return to the point of entry or completion, but it is always better to have a separate entrance and exit, as is admirably exemplified in the laundry at Southport, illustrated in Plate V. In many instances vertical planning is of as great importance as is the horizontal, the goods being conveyed by lifts from floor to floor, and in such cases it is perhaps more common than not for the raw material to be taken to the top, and for the work to be done so that the goods pass gradually downwards to the delivery yard on the ground floor.

In this connection it is thought well to introduce a plan here of the out - dyeing department of the

Unclassified Buildings 192

Fig. 166.

Manchester Technical School (Fig. 166), rather than under the heading of schools. Being a school, it naturally differs somewhat from an actual practical dyeing establishment, but not to any very large extent, the principal's office taking the place of the manager's and clerk's offices of an actual workshop. There is a separate enclosed space for yarn bleaching and dyeing, as distinct from the main body of the floor where clothing is dealt with, in each case portions of the floor being separated off from other portions for particular processes, and all served by carefully devised open channels through which the spare water flows away, there being naturally a large amount of water used in the work; and two tanks will be noticed in connection with these channels. There are also separately partitioned rooms for certain special purposes, the partitions not necessarily being carried up to the ceiling. The storage-room for finished material and the pattern sample-room are placed close to the principal's office just as they would be in practice, but the entrance hall, it may be said without offence to the architect, Mr. A. W. S. Cross, is an unnecessarily handsome apartment for a workshop, though perfectly justifiable in a school. The elevation has appeared already as one of the illustrations to Volume V.

Unclassified Buildings 193

Fig. 167.

Unclassified Buildings 194

Fig. 168.

Fig. 169

Fig. 169.

Unclassified Buildings 196

Fig. 170.

Fig. 171

Fig. 171.

Unclassified Buildings 198