Cottage designs : awarded premiums in the competitions conducted by the Royal Institute of British Architects with the concurrence of the Local Government Board.

Date:
1918
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cottage designs : awarded premiums in the competitions conducted by the Royal Institute of British Architects with the concurrence of the Local Government Board. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    so far as the limitations of expense will allow, and that this may be attained without elaboration, but simply by careful grouping of the houses, study of the design and spacing of windows, etc. This aspect of the problem is more fully dealt with on a subsequent page. With regard to (4), it is impossible at the present time to give any estimate of the probable cost of the houses shown. The cubic contents of each house are stated on the drawings, but it is impossible to say what is the present advance on pre-war rates. Generally speaking, it is felt that although many able designs have been sub- mitted nothing very original or revolutionary has resulted from the competition. Nevertheless, a great deal of useful information has been received. ‘The competition, too, has led to a widespread interest and study of the whole problem of the design and construction of these cottages. It is the intention of the Local Government Board to erect a few typical cottages for experimental purposes, and this, it may be claimed, is an important step towards preparing the way for a really satisfactory solution of the problem of housing the working classes immediately conditions allow. In any discussion of the principles of cottage design it is well to realise at the out- set that the planning of a cottage very largely resolves itself into the skilful adjusting of certain contending interests, or, in other words, into the making of a compromise. A cottage is a structural device in which certain opposing influences are balanced. It is not a question merely of the ancient struggie between cost and size, though this, the occasional antagonism between a man’s means and his wants, plays its part in the planning of the cottage, as indeed it does in other departments of architecture and in the wider fields of general social economics. Like most other buildings a cottage is subject to certain limitations, and these are chiefly three in number—moderate rental, moderate size and modesty of requirements. We may look upon a cottage as the home of a working-class family of limited means and of sufficient self-respect to be desirous of paying its rent without either undue encroachment on income or undue reliance on subsidy. It may seem unreasonable to press these points, but there are certain enthusiasts among housing reformers who are prone to advise that it is not desirable to be unduly fettered by questions of cost and size, and others who urge that cost and size should at once give way before considerations of health, comfort and that proper pride which looks for the expansion rather than the curtailment of the cottager’s needs. Health, comfort and genera] amelioration should have the primary claim on the cottage architect’s attention. Anything unhygienic, anything uncomfortable is inadmissible. But cost and size, which mean rent and convenience, are also things that need to be considered with respect, and in any case if there is still to be sought some device which will give a worker of moderate means the maximum of comfort.