House Planning

HOUSE PLANNING.) Apartments (Flats), Hotels.—Apartment or flat building, especially in America, is not confined to cities and towns where the concentrated population might furnish an excuse ; it has an increasing vogue even in small villages. The apartment building is simply a combination of compact homes one above the other. The plan problem consists of making a series of such home units, each comprising a living-room, dining-room, kitchen, and one or more bedrooms and baths. A foyer or entrance hall, library and study may be added to the living-room; a breakfast-room, pantry and servants' hall may be added to the kitchen and dining-room; and a nursery and servants' rooms to the bedrooms. These, how ever, are merely supplementary to the basic unit. The popular apartment hotel is simply an apartment house in which the kitchens and the servants' sections of all the apartments are con centrated in one place and conducted under hotel management. In the hotel proper improvement in mechanical arrangements is more manifest than any change in basic planning principle. As in most other types of buildings, the tendency is toward increased size. The heavy overhead expense of a modern hotel, giving com plete service of every kind, makes it difficult to operate success fully with less than I,000 rooms. The plan problem starts with a typical bedroom floor which is repeated many times and is the basis of income. The lower floors, the least in demand as bed rooms (for the public seems to have lost its fear of fire in modern structures and prefers to be high for light, air and freedom from noise), are used for the essential hotel offices, lounging spaces, parlours, dining-rooms, banquet-halls, restaurants, cafeterias, etc.

(See also SOCIAL ARCHITECTURE.) Specialized Buildings.—Theatre design has markedly pro gressed, and the picture house has added a new problem. In old theatres, stage and auditorium formed two nearly balancing ele ments. Improved mechanical equipment has somewhat reduced the size of the stage, and the different seating arrangements of the auditorium have increased proportionately the ground area of this part. The cinema requires almost no stage, and in many cases the auditorium has been enlarged almost beyond the reach of the human voice. In both types the cross section shows the use of but one balcony, and no supporting posts to interrupt the view. Architecturally most theatres of both types are problems in interior design. Being commercial enterprises, and requiring no natural light, they occupy spaces away from the street and have at most only a small street frontage. Of course the government owned and municipal theatres are generally free standing, and, like the Paris Opera House, have an architectural treatment in keep ing with their location.

For open-air entertainment, the most significant structure that has appeared is the great stadium (q.v.) rivalling in size, and in some cases in architectural embellishment, those of old. These are of three general classes: those completely elliptical in form and built on banked-up earth as at Yale university; those built up from the level of the ground like the Colosseum of Rome but open at one end as at Princeton university ; and those built only at one side of the play-field. (See also THEATRE ARCHITECTURE.) Care of the sick has received particular attention (see HOSPITAL PLANNING). The World War gave medicine and surgery op portunities for study and experiment that brought about great strides in both fields and many new features in hospital design. Two types of plans may be noted : the open scheme with few storeys where ample space is available, and the compact many storeyed type required in cities. The open plans show a more orderly arrangement of building units, central administration, kitchen facilities and power plants; general orientation is a very important factor, and lines of communication unite the various elements in a direct and simple plan-scheme.

III. EDUCATIONAL ARCHITECTUREIii. EDUCATIONAL ARCHITECTURE Under this heading are included all buildings in which knowl edge is imparted and acquired, either directly, by contact between teacher and pupil, as in schools, colleges and universities; or in directly, as in museums, libraries and exhibition buildings. Com pulsory elementary education prevails in most civilized countries, and government-directed institutions are on the increase. The one-time high school group which represented merely the finishing touches of an English education has become subdivided into many different forms. Modern education, which prepares the pupil for a later status in life, has divers schools where the pupil is trained in whatever vocation he selects, and is launched successfully on a career.

Schools.

The development of architecture in school buildings has been one of the most remarkable phases of architectural progress during the present century. The architect who special izes in schoolhouse construction must be a student of educational methods, and, moreover, he must know how to conserve the physical wellbeing of the pupil during school hours by surrounding him with every element of safety that will protect his health, his eyesight and his general physical condition. The tendency toward larger and larger units that runs through commerce and industry manifests itself again in educational buildings. The large institu tion is the only adequate means of meeting the demand for in struction, but there is a distinct limit to the number of students that a single teacher can handle. Much study and experiment on the part of experts in this field have evolved a classroom of fairly definite size and shape. The school plan revolves around this unit classroom. Unilateral lighting is preferred; wide corri dors, leading to the exits, stairways, assembly hall, gymnasium and other special spaces, adjoin all rooms; ceiling heights are ample for ventilation purposes, and when there is r 5f t. or more from floor to floor above, stairways can be doubled, thus securing two separate stair exits in the space formerly occupied by one.

(See also SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE.) Universities.—The most interesting feature of the newer col leges and universities is the comprehensive plan layout, permitting future expansion, upon which they are being built. The older universities of Europe grew through the centuries by successive accretions, and they possess, of course, the charm and interest of historical background and precedent. Certain modern univer sities, notably in America, have endeavoured to recapture this atmosphere by imitating the semi-monastic architecture of those older institutions—Harkness Memorial hall at Yale and the Grad uate school at Princeton, to mention only two. On the other hand, there is a growing tendency to accept frankly the changed conditions of the time and build in the modern idiom. The Uni versity of Pittsburgh plans to build a sky-scraper to house its halls of learning. (See also UNIVERSITY ARCHITECTURE.) Libraries.—Libraries are keeping step with the general in crease in public education. Many large cities have a central build ing, extensive in scope and impressive in design, and one or more branches at convenient points in the populous districts. The gen eral plan consists of a central public room, where books are loaned and returned, where card catalogues are convenient for consulta tion and where information is given. Together with the stack rooms, this forms the hub of the plan, around which are disposed other special spaces, such as children's rooms, periodical rooms, reference rooms, special exhibits, etc., as the scope of the work demands. (See also LIBRARY ARCHITECTURE.) Museums.—Public museums constantly take a more important place in modern life as a means of indirect education. The addi tion of many commercial, industrial, mechanical, horticultural and other museums to the traditional art museum is proof of this. Here the plan is comparatively simple, consisting of large well-lighted spaces through which visitors pass from room to room. Good modern practice provides one entrance with control, and a disposition of rooms that permits of any given space being temporarily closed for rearrangement or installation of exhibits without shutting off other rooms from public access. The growing tendency of the modern museum to combine educational courses open to the public with its more traditional activities frequently calls for the addition of lecture-rooms, reference-rooms and even auditoriums to the usual plan. (See also MUSEUM ARCHI