TENEMENT-HOUSE.
The High Factory Building.—In recent years legislation has been concerned with the growing problem of the factory located in large cities. One reason for the establishment of factories in such places is that the manu facture of °seasonal° goods demands the proximity of a large supply of surplus labor and this advantage is given by a congested city area. The average height of such factories is 10 stories and in many of them conditions pre vail worse than those of the so-called sweat shops or tenement-house factories. The prob lem has been studied by a State factory in vestigation committee and a local °commission on congestion of population° and it seems likely that the control of such buildings can be made absolute only by enlarging the powers of the State or municipal departments having under their charge all measures for health, fire prevention and safe construction. See FAC TORIES AND FACTORY INSPECTION.
Recent Enactments.— Much effective work has been done by the National Board of Fire Underwriters and the National Fire Protection Association, working in conjunction with State and local authorities, and the American In stitute of Architects, in securing good building codes and improved methods of construction, not entirely by process of law but also by educating the various communities to the economic value of the high standards set. This has been done chiefly by reducing insurance rates and demonstrating the possibilities of lower cost of maintenance and repairs.
In 1915 New York city adopted a new code that had been under preparation for several years by Rudolph P. Miller, formerly super intendent of the Manhattan building depart ment, assisted by a committee of fire under writers, architects, builders, structural en gineers and representatives of the real estate interests. There were a number of important new sections as well as changes, the idea being to establish a foundation for future building construction and inspection and to provide a code that would ensure the highest type of construction, sanitation and fire protection. A change in the fireproof limits was made; provisions were adopted for reinforced con crete and terra-cotta construction, for greater use of hollow tile, for increased exit facilities, for projections beyond the building lines, for providing flues and chimneys in a building where the abutting building is built higher, for inspecting and certifying elevator installation, etc.; new specifications for ventilation and lighting were adopted; provision was made for an assessment of penalties and for com pelling immediate compliance with depart mental orders. In Philadelphia new regulations were enacted in 1915 relating to the construc tion of reinforced concrete buildings requiring that, when plans of such a building were sub mitted to the building department, stress com putations and detailed descriptions should ac company them, including the nature and sizes of all reinforcements, the quality, proportions and method of the concrete, and the dead and live loads that each and every floor was sup posed to carry. In 1916, after three years' in
vestigation at home and abroad, the New York City Board of Estimate and Apportionment, under authorization by the State legislature, di vided the city into four classifications: (1) residence; (2) business; (3) unrestricted; (4) undetermined. In the first, all kinds of busi ness and industrial buildings and occupations are excluded. In the second, residences are per mitted, but industrial buildings are prohibited, and only certain limited areas are permitted for industrial occupations. The unrestricted dis tricts are open to industrial uses, and it is ex pected that they will congregate there. Thc classification °undetermined') is given to areas in which the particular lines of development are not yet evident, owing to the incomplete state of the city's transportation facilities. By the same act a schedule of heights for build ings was established upon which the basis of the width of the streets on which they are built. In 1917 the legislatures of seven States — Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, Minne sota, Michigan, Rhole Island and Indiana— passed laws affecting buildings throughout those States, the so-called "zoning° system as applied to New York exhibiting a marked influence.
In 1915 the 'Fourth Edition of the Building Code' was published by the National Board of Fire Underwriters of New York. This gives a vast amount of information regarding build ing probldms, methods and requirements of construction and materials, and the most note worthy features that have been incorporated in local codes. It also gives the most advanced requirements in fire protection, considers the question of materials and working stresses and gives the latest developments for iron, steel, timber, etc., based on official and other tests. The Federal government has taken interest in the standardization of building methods to the extent of issuing an order through the Treasury Department that uniformity and business economy must be established in the construc tion of post offices and other government build ings. Consult Ash, M., 'Building Code of New York City' (New York 1899); Blake, Clinton H., 'The Law of Architecture and Buildings' (New York 1916); Fitzpatrick, F. W.,