david w. king, a young architect, was appointed to prepare a design for the project and to oversee the construction. the brief was to erect premises to the full building height, and to design in conformity with that of the surrounding buildings. the contract was let to builders kell and rigby following the calling of tenders in february 1936 and construction began in early june 1936, subsequent to five months of preliminary work and excavation. the structural systems selected for the project was that in common use at that time, a structural steel frame with reinforced concrete floor slabs and concrete encasement to the steel work. this composite systems allowed for extremely rapid construction of the superstructure and work on the steel frame commenced on 3 june 1936 and was completed on 17 september, a period of fifteen weeks.