Offices And Workshops

This building comprises offices and workshops, constructed around 1933-1935, with an unknown architect. The structure consists of two distinct areas: an office building facing the road to the southeast, and a workshop situated to the rear.

The office section features brick walls which have been rendered and painted white, embellished with decorative concrete fins. The workshop walls are left as fair-faced brick. Small-paned, painted metal windows are present throughout. The office has a flat roof, while the workshop is covered by a steep double-pitch roof constructed of corrugated asbestos sheeting, with ceiling lights on the northeast side. A single-storey extension, separately numbered 117b, is set back along the southwest side. The rear elevations are considered to be of no particular interest.

The office building is of a shallow, rectangular plan with a curved corner on the south side. A central entrance is located along the long southeast street frontage, accompanied by a projecting, curved stair tower to its right. The ground floor lobby contains the stairwell and provides access to small rooms on either side, as well as direct access to the workshop. Two further rooms are situated on the first floor of the office. The workshop itself is a larger space, mirroring the width of the office, with smaller, lower-ceilinged rooms added to the rear.

The office’s exterior is designed in the Moderne style. The principal façade, facing the street, partially obscures the workshop. A curved window aligns with the corner’s curve, and the stair tower is adorned with six tiered, projecting horizontal fins, the lowest acting as a canopy over the entrance and a small lobby window. A narrow coping tops the parapet, and metal windows punctuate the façade. The side elevations consist of the rendered, narrow end walls of the office adjacent to the functional fair-faced brick walls of the workshop/extension.

The interiors of both the office and workshop are relatively simple. The office’s walls are white-painted and rendered, with carpeted floors, a modern suspended ceiling, and fluorescent lighting. The workshop’s walls are of white-painted brick, with painted concrete block along the southwest side, adjoining the extension. The ceilings are likely plasterboard, following the pitch of the roofline and supported by two lightweight metal trusses. These are fitted with modern suspended lighting, and the floor is a screed laid over brick.

The building was likely constructed for Gough Harding, process engravers, who also utilized the neighboring house, No. 119, as premises in 1937.