The exteriors of the first buildings erected for apartments were designed to simulate private city residences. This form, especially in districts where such residences exist, is still in vogue when the height does not exceed five or six storeys. It results from the designer's natural inclination to give dwell ings, even when piled up, a domestic character. But when the number of storeys exceeds six the design problem becomes one of building masses, for which there is no precedent in domestic architecture and which makes a conventional domestic atmo sphere practically impossible. Under the various modern building regulations, the sky-scraper apartment, like any other tall building takes more or less specified forms, and, to the casual observer, differs from the office building only in that it has fewer windows. The set-backs are frequently made into verandas, terraces and gardens on which French windows open. Where the roofs are flat over a sufficient area, penthouses are built and used as inde pendent dwellings or as rooms belonging to the apartment proper immediately below, according as to whether or not the roof of the penthouse comes within the legal height of the building; with potted plants and small statues, the surrounding roof is then treated as a garden. (See LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE.) Although limited to relatively few tenants, dwellings of this character enjoy the quiet of the old-fashioned separated house.
Its domestic character is generally given to a modern city apartment house in the treatment of its interior. In proportion to the mass above it the entrance hall is less spacious than that of an office building ; its ceiling height may be kept down to the storey height of the building. It is generally carpeted and furnished as an elaborate lounge with provisions for a controlling office, telephone switchboard, etc. The decoration of the apartments themselves was formerly done in period styles, with elaborate panelling and ceiling effects, depending on the size of the apartment and the wealth of its tenant. The present tendency, however, seems to be away from this and toward the use of both colour and furnishings of a modernistic character. (See INTERIOR DECORATION.) Forecast.—Modern life may be said to be an experiment in concentration, and it is, therefore, worth while to consider the possible results of increasing the concentration of both residence and business—presupposing, of course, that it can be accomplished compatibly with health and comfort. The problem is how to keep the principle of concentration with its economic and cultural advantages while so designing as to get for the individual the minimum travel and hurry, now the most distressing factors in urban life, and the maximum ease. To-day every city is trying to retain as much residence as possible in and near its business zones. Although zoning regulations may restrict business from a residential district, residences, without exception, can be built in business zones. This is done purposely so as not to submit every one to the loss of time and energy involved in travelling to and from work daily; indeed, the traffic problem gives the strongest impetus to the present tendency to reunite residence and business.
Successful attempts to decentralize, in which so-called satellite towns are developed around the central city, have been made; but such towns, theoretically self-sufficient, seem to decrease as residential and increase as business centres.
Buildings whose bases would cover a large city square could be designed to house commercial enterprises and industries not involving disagreeable smells, noises, etc., in the lower storeys and above the first set-back, at the top of the first io or i 5, the workers associated with them in residences of the apartment or apartment-hotel type, receiving the benefit of broad outlook, sun shine, and natural light and ventilation. A modern office building contains a dark core devoted to service mechanisms and sur rounded by office units in horizontal layers. In the largest build ings to-day, most offices while receiving natural light are too deep from the outside wall for it to serve the entire unit ; many workers, prevented by the windows from feeling shut in, have artificial light. Moreover, artificial ventilation when properly in stalled supplies cleaner and healthier air than is possible in the old-fashioned office, even with the windows open. As buildings are increased in size, the increased area of the office unit makes it possible for the workers to be more efficient and under pater control per square foot of floor area without suffering incon venience. Above the first set-back each storey would be recessed behind the one below which then would form, in front of each apartment, a terrace for the use of the residents. These upper storeys, in use and type of management, though not in disposition of spaces, would probably resemble the apartment-hotel more closely than any other present type, for the same economic forces that have driven people from private dwellings to apartments are beginning to turn them from apartments to apartment-hotels in which cooking is a communal service. The stepped and terraced tower would rise from the centre of the block. The interior of the tower, beyond the depth usable for living purposes, would contain communal rooms—dining-rooms, gymnasiums, libraries and radio, lecture, dancing and motion picture halls—all artificially lighted and ventilated. To secure the full benefit of sunshine during at least half the day, the whole building would be oriented north and south, like a ward wing in a hospital. Every room for living or sleeping would face east or west and on a terrace forming the roof of the floor below. At one end of the building block, logically the north, a service tower would rise with elevators or other form of vertical circulation connecting residence with business, pedes trian and traffic levels. Merchandise and people would move up and down through this tower through a series of superimposed landing stages (like floors with no enclosing walls) for aeroplanes, designed to rise and descend vertically, to deposit and receive passengers.