engineering

John Bridge Woolstore

John Bridge Woolstore is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John Bridge Woolstore rather than just read about it. In short: The John Bridge Woolstore is a heritage-listed former warehouse located at 64 Harbour Street, in the Sydney central business district, in the City of Sydney local government area. It was probably designed by either William Pritchard or his son Arthur Pritchard, and was built by Stuart Bros. in 1889.

Key takeaways

John Bridge Woolstore belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John Bridge Woolstore to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Bridge Woolstore from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The John Bridge Woolstore is a heritage-listed former warehouse located at 64 Harbour Street, in the Sydney central business district, in the City of Sydney local government area. It was probably designed by either William Pritchard or his son Arthur Pritchard, and was built by Stuart Bros. in 1889. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

History This former wool warehouse was designed in 1889 for John Bridge & Co and constructed by Stuart Brothers. John Bridge & Co was one of the leading wool and grain businesses of Australia. The building was used as a woolstore until it was acquired by the Commonwealth Government in 1914, for use as a Postmaster-General's Department stores branch. Its designer was probably William Pritchard. A perspective drawing published in The Freeman's Journal in April 1889 bears the Pritchard name (the initial is missing, so it is not known whether it was William or his son Arthur, who was also an architect). The building is often likened to the enlarged Mort & Co wool warehouse designed at Circular Quay by the Blackets (or by John Horbury Hunt when he was in Blacket's office). Like the Harbour Street warehouse, the Mort building had a roof of sawtooth truss construction with south-light glazing to provide excellent light in the top floor, conventionally the wool sale floor. Hunt claimed that he introduced this roof form into Australia. Interestingly, Blacket & Son designed a wool warehouse for a Jonathon Bridge in 1882. It also had a sawtooth roof. In 1977 the former John Bridge warehouse was converted to offices. In 1989 the internal structure of cast iron columns and heavy timber girders was demolished and the whole converted to its present hotel use. In 1992, the ground floor was converted to a licensed tavern.

Description Designed in the Victorian Free Classical style, the building addresses both Harbour Street and Factory Street in a distinguished planar design. The storey levels are marked in the orange-brown walling by projecting bands, and the angles of the facades and the window reveals are quoined, with cream bricks. The arches of the openings are laid in red bricks. The parapet is rendered as a panelled entablature. The great thickness of the perimeter walls at ground floor level signifies the difficulty encountered in traditional loadbearing construction as building heights increased. Internally the seven levels of the old building were gutted and in 1989 replaced by a concrete structure; the only original structural elements now visible are re-positioned in the ground-floor restaurant in the south end. The cruciform-section cast iron columns have distinctive saddle-form capitals and stiffening rings, and the heavy timber girders support timber joists. It is now part of a modern hotel development (now Furama Darling Harbour) which extends to Little Hay Street to the south.

Heritage listing The John Bridge Woolstore was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register (as the Post Office Stores) on 2 April 1999.

Significance The former John Bridge Woolstore has historic significance for its association with John Bridge & Co, one of the leading wool and grain businesses for which it was built. Now part of the Holiday Inn Darling Harbour (formerly Furama Hotel), it is a rare example of a large fine Victorian period woolstore beautifully built in polychrome brickwork. It is a superbly-scaled element in the streetscape. It is representative of a period of development which saw many warehouses constructed around the piers, wharves and goods railway sidings of Darling Harbour. The small display section of cruciform cast-iron structure retained from the original structure has scientific significance.

See also Australian non-residential architectural styles Media related to John Bridge Woolstore at Wikimedia Commons

References

Attribution This Wikipedia article was originally based on Post Office Stores, entry number 608 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 13 October 2018. This Wikipedia article was originally based on Former John Bridge Woolstore Facades, entry number 2424224 in the New South Wales Heritage Database published by the State of New South Wales and Office of Environment and Heritage 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 20 August 2018.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Bridge Woolstore

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Bridge Woolstore claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John Bridge Woolstore before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John Bridge Woolstore ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John Bridge Woolstore

In research: John Bridge Woolstore appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John Bridge Woolstore in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John Bridge Woolstore is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1889 establishments in Australia, Buildings and structures completed in 1889, Commercial buildings in New South Wales, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Bridge Woolstore outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John Bridge Woolstore in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John Bridge Woolstore means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John Bridge Woolstore out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John Bridge Woolstore in simple terms?

Why does John Bridge Woolstore matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John Bridge Woolstore?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John Bridge Woolstore.