APARTMENT AND HOTEL ARCHITECTURE Apartment houses (flats) are buildings of compact and superimposed homes. In Paris in the 18th century, probably due to a need to house more persons in the space available, private dwellings of several storeys were slightly rearranged so as to ac commodate one family per floor. This led to buildings so planned before construction. Later, residential buildings were again altered, this time to provide quarters on each floor for two or more families. The space per family decreased as concentration in creased.
The development of apartments has been intimately affected by that of the modern home. One hundred years ago the home was self-sufficient ; moreover, it was fairly simple ; its appliances and functions could be directed by anyone with common sense and willingness to work. To-day it is quite different. Most of its former functions are performed by specialized agencies, such as hospitals, restaurants, etc. Often it serves only as a place in which to sleep and entertain. Inventions have filled it with convenient, labour-saving devices. Rapid and smooth functioning at all hours is demanded. The apartment house, by bringing people together and pooling their interests, furnishes expert and up-to-the-minute service at relatively small cost per unit apartment. Its popu larity has grown steadily ; it is now familiar in practically all large cities of the western world ; even small communities with ample room for lateral growth demand and build apartments. Paris holds the record for this type of building, its total of concentrated housing space surpassing even that of New York where the sky scraper apartment is common. In the United States, however, there is a marked tendency for apartments with gardens, res taurants, swimming pools, libraries, complete private facilities, to be produced in comprehensive units involving large areas in sections that are within walking distance of important centres but that would be irreclaimable without such planning.
There is no limit to the number of families that can be placed one above the other or on the same floor, but kitchens and toilets have to be provided for each. In many building laws, both in
Europe and America, the apartment or tenement classification is based on the existence of these facilities. The kitchen is re garded as the principal fire hazard ; therefore, building regula tions as to the materials and methods of construction and the requirements for fire stairs, are made with reference to the num ber of kitchens. The kitchen thereby becomes the indicator of the family unit, except in the apartment-hotel, where it is absent. The only other restriction on the number of families in one building is that on the size of the building itself. (See ZONING.) In the United States, tall buildings are now made practically fireproof, but although diminished by the use of gas and elec tricity, and restaurants instead of kitchens, the fire hazard in an apartment is, of course, still greater than that in an office ; conse quently, the height of apartment buildings is more stringently re stricted. There must always be two independent means of exit. Apartment buildings are of two distinct types : the walk-up and the elevator or lift. Any building over five or six storeys requires a lift, and to be of practical value the lift must always work. Since no mechanical device is ever perfect, good planning prac tice requires the installation of a battery of at least two lifts in order to insure constant operation in case of breakdown. It might seem that the lift would change the planning problem only in so far as it makes more storeys possible. When there are only one or two apartments to a floor, either the lift or the stairway occu pies a central location, and the apartments are planned around this vertical line of circulation as a starting point. But as the number of apartments per floor in the walk-up type increases, additional, separate lines of stairways must be added where needed. Lifts, however, being perpendicular shafts, are kept together so as to form on each floor a central distributing point to a large number of apartments. This requires special planning.