AREA


 SEMINAR


 An area seminar, scheduled for
Jacksonville on March 10-11,
1967, will take the design question
one step further . with the aid
of top-flight speakers.

 Seminar coordinator Don Edge,
AIA, has significantly entitled the
upcoming seminar "Design Ac-
complishment," with heavy em-
phasis on the "accomplishment"
part. Design chairman for the
seminar is Dan P. Branch, AIA,
and Accomplishment chairman is
John P. Stevens, AIA.

 Part of the AIA's "continuing
education" program, this seminar
will be held in Jacksonville's Thun-
derbird Motel. In order to spot-
light the effort and correlation be-
tween design and its accomplish-
ment, the seminar will utilize an
outstanding building as a 'living
example'-the Gulf Life Center, a
27-stories-tall building on a 12-acre
St. John's River-front site across
from downtown Jacksonville. The
building is also the tallest, pre-cast,
post-tensioned concrete structure
in the nation. It was designed by
Welton Becket & Associates of Los
Angeles. Kemp, Bunch & Jackson
of Jacksonville are associate archi-
tects.

 Representatives from both archi-
tectural firms will be on hand to
take an active part in the seminar.
Moderator and dinner speaker will
be Mr. Jan Rowan, editor of "Pro-
gressive Architecture" magazine.

 All panelists will attend all ses-
20


sions of the two-day coordinated
seminar. Presentations will place
emphasis on how various offices
and people resolved the design. In
addition, table-top exhibits will be
displayed by Producer Council
members and other invited guests.


 Registration fee is $17.00
($10.00 for students) and this in-
cludes three meals.

 One of the principal panelists at
the seminar will be Mr. Hal
Schley, vice president of building
for Gulf Life Center. Gulf Life
Insurance Company has given en-
thusiastic support to seminar lead-
ers for use of the building as a
"Design Accomplishment" exam-
ple.

 "Our design concept for the
Gulf Life Tower was conceived to
capture the solidity and vitality of
a growing insurance company,"
architect Welton Becket, FAIA,
explained. "In addition, we sought
to utilize a material which would
visually unify the several structures
on the site." he continued. "We
selected concrete for its design flex-
ibility and evolved the precast,
pest-tensioning construction as a
single solution to presenting the
bold image we sought, providing
relative economy, shortening the
construction time, and providing
long-span, column-free floor areas
which is a desirable characteristic
of space for insurance company
operations."

 The 430-ft.-high tower com-
pletely exposes its sculptured struc-
tural frame on the exterior. The
structural frame is supported by
eight tapered concrete columns,
two on each side of the square
tower. Precast, prestressed concrete
beams join the two columns at


every floor and cantilever outward
a distance of over 40 ft. on either
side. Each of the beams consists of
14 precast concrete segments
strung together with high strength
steel rods and then post-tensioned
by tightening fasteners on either
cnd of the rods.

 A glass-enclosed lobby at the en-
trance level is recessed from a
glass-enclosed, two-story-high bank
on the second level, which is in
turn recessed from the tower's
window walls. Escalators serve the
banking floor from the lobby as do
the building's 12 passenger and 2
service elevators. On a concourse
level is a 600-seat cafeteria over-
looking the river, an employee
lounge and a large kitchen.


THE FLORIDA ARCHITECT