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Demonstration House

A Family Matter

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A Family Matter

Soldiers live in barracks, bachelors in boarding houses, but families live in houses. A family will be influenced more by the house it lives in than will the bachelor by the boardinghouse. The design of a house, then, demands special care, as families are more important to a country than are bachelors, or even soldiers.

More than all the labour-saving equipment, and the atmosphere of comfort and security, a family requires space—space for all the things they do together and space for all the things they do separately. Would the ideal house, then, be a huge structure with separate rooms for all these activities? Of course not. Even a woman would have only 168 hours weekly in which to clean it; even the most eligible of one-time bachelors would not be able to afford it; and even the most generous of building controllers would not allow it.

If we may not have the space, then, we must be satisfied with a feeling of space. Outside every house there is plenty of it. Need we shut ourselves from it with walls in which we punch small holes we call windows? The Demonstration House attempts to overcome this bv grouping the rooms around the patio, which becomes in essence an outdoor living-room, and by providing generous windows and glazed doors opening on

to it. All the main rooms are in this way made to seem part of the greater space outside.

By careful planning the maximum use has been made of such space as is enclosed. The living-room is large, a separate laundry has been eliminated and what would have been passageway has been absorbed in the utility room. This can be used as a play room, sewing-room or a hobby-room.

We have become reconciled to “minimum houses’’ which are tightly-planned boxes like the barrack block or the boarding-house. The Demonstration House shows that this feeling of restriction can be defied, and without extravagance . . . because a house is not where a family is imprisoned, but where it lives.

The next requirement of a good house is that it is suited to the ^particular family who live in it. In design it should be in harmony with the temperament of the occupants. It should have “personality” just as a barrack block or boarding-ing-house can have no personality. In the design of the Demonstration House this was difficult, as the occupants were hypothetical people whose interests were outlined and much had to be imagined. Domestic design is not so much a thing of the intellect that personal likes and dislikes have no place.

architectural drawing of house

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the problem

the problem

The third criterion is efficiency. All theorising about environment and individuality is hypocrisy if the housewife is condemned to slavery in a badly-designed kitchen. Careful planning can save many needless steps and careful detailing can eliminate many dust-traps. The Demonstration House received special attention in this respect. Equipment can assist. The laundry tubs and machine have been placed in a curtained recess in the bathroom, thus doing away with the dismal “wash-house” and combining two rooms which are rarely used simultaneously. A built-in fan in one of the panes of the kitchen window is more than a novelty. In an open plan like this it is very effective in removing cooking odours.

Efficiency goes further than saving steps and saving embarrassments. It can mean saving fuel. The economical coke-burning heater in the utility room is the back-bone of the heating system. Intelligent use of large windows on to the (sometimes) sun-flooded patio allows the maximum use of solar heat. The living-room fireplace is designed to obtain more from fuel than the usual 18% efficiency of the open fire. The circular steel flue has not been taken outside the house, but has been exposed for its full height so that it will radiate into the room some of the heat which is normally lost.

one suggested solution

one suggested solution

one suggested solution

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another suggested solution

another suggested solution

another suggested solution

another suggested solution

It would be a selfish philosophy which allowed people to live in bliss and efficiency in an ideal house, regardless of the effect of its appearance on the passer-by. The good house will harmonise with the surroundings where possible. It should not draw attention to itself by pretentious ornament or artificial styling. By restraint in design, careful proportioning and studied colouring, it can be an asset to the scene. The Demonstration House attempts this. There is no aspiration to attract attention through ostentation, through style, be it classic or “moderne” or through deliberate freakishness. The elevations, like the plan, are the outcome of honest-to-goodness careful design.

All the foregoing have been general considerations. If that was all there was in house design, surely by now someone would have published a handbook of plans tabulated according to the client's purse, size of family, temperament and interests.

A house is a most immobile thing. It is most important that it be suited to the site to which it will be wedded—there can be no divorce.

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the solution chosen

the solution chosen

Aspect, access, orientation and contours are of vital importance, and they vary from site to site. With the Demonstration House they deserved more than usual consideration.

The site had a good oudook to the east and south and west; it rose to the north. A small flat area was located near the north boundary and about 40ft above the road level, and apart from this area, it sloped very steeply. The cost of a good view was exposure to the southerlies. The cost of protection from the northerlies was an oudook on to a bank.

The schemes prepared by the students in the competition offered interesting solutions. One attempted to make full use of the flat area by placing the bedrooms upstairs. Some showed insufficient regard for the slope of the site, while others made the most of the view but offered no protection from the wind.

The successful design was the outcome of Careful study of the difficulties of the site. The house was conceived as a U-shaped screen on three sides of a court. The view was preserved

from all the rooms, while most also looked on to the court. This was sheltered from the northerlies by the bank, and from the southerlies by the house itself, while the windows on the exposed parts were kept as small as possible and not made to open. The bank is not so high that it blocks out the midday sun, even in winter. It is not often realised that Wellington’s sunshine record is comparable with that of Southern Italy. It is the high winds which prevent our exploiting the possibilities of outdoor living to the same extent. The patio of the Demonstration House makes full use of this sunshine possible by forming an outdoor lounge protected from all the winds and from public view.

The bogey of space, the bogey of southerlies, the bogey of suspicious neighbours, and the bogey of steep sites have all been overcome.

The Demonstration House is more than a good solution to a difficult siting problem. It is more than an example of careful visual design. It is more than an efficient machine. It is a place where a family will live. They should live well.