New Building Construction
The introduction and use of metal and glass as construction material has been hailed as the greatest forward step in architecture since the introduction of steel frame buildings. The lighting features illustrated on this page are but one of the many advantageous features of this new combination. Buildings can be put up in one-half the time and at a 20% saving in cost from the ordinary masonry. Read the rest of this entry »

ARCTIC CABINS HAVE WINDOWS HEWN FROM ICE

Log shelters constructed in northern Russia for Soviet fishermen have windows of ice instead of glass. Thick slabs, cut from clear ice, were hewn to shape, fitted into the window frames, and frozen in place. Constant sub-zero temperatures keep the ice windows frozen solid throughout the long winter months. Seen from the outside, the ice windows sparkle with the electric lights in the cabin’s interior.

Chimneys Blow Smoke Rings

To add an unusual touch to these Orvieto, Italy, chimneys, they were constructed on spiral lines so that the smoke comes out of them in graceful curves and rings.

Boxcar Homes for $3 Per Month

AN INNOVATION in living quarters is represented in a boxcar village which has recently sprung up in New York City.

Inhabitants of this unique village, pictured below, pay only $3 a month rent, or $6 a week for room and board—reasonable enough in these hard times.
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That’s a really neat looking house.

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Jackie Gleason’s Round House

THE MANY TALENTS and accomplishments of Jackie Gleason would put him out of the ordinary class of home builders. And Round Rock Hill, his new home on the outskirts of Peekskill, N. Y., is just that—out of the ordinary. Built on top of a hill in the center of nine acres of dense woodland, the house provides the comedian-composer-actor with “a pattern for living and working” — it contains his office and a broadcasting studio as well as his home.

Everything about the home is round. There’s an eight-foot round bed with a built-in television set in the ceiling above it; a round shower room in glass and tile; round and semicircular rugs and furniture. Even the stairways curve to match the curve of the outside walls. In the center of the round living room is a huge triple fireplace. The studio room focuses on a grand piano.

The house is built on three levels across the 175-foot front elevation. Glass walls everywhere look out over the wooded hills.

Ready-Made House Costs $500

Equipped with a stove, refrigerator, window screens, dining table, couch, and other home accessories, a new type of prefabricated house costs less than $500. Designed as a first unit to which later additions may be made, the factory-built structure includes living room, dinette, and kitchen, with folding beds for four people.

ARCHITECT DESIGNS COTTON HOUSES

Houses of cotton are proposed by Lawrence Kocher, noted architect, to solve the low-cost housing problem. Models of two types; a $1,500 five-room home and a week-end house, have been designed. A weatherproof exterior is provided by a roof and walls of fireproofed cotton ducking stretched over a wooden structural frame. Inner walls are also of cotton. Insulating material may be added to exclude heat and cold. Since the canvas is flexible, it is adaptable to any shaped surface.

GARAGE BUILT OF AUTO TAGS IS PROOF AGAINST RUST

Tightly sheathed on roof and sides with unused automobile license tags, a serviceable garage, seventeen feet square and ten feet high, with space for two cars has been built in Denver, Colo. The tags’ were obtained from a surplus of 22,000 left over in the office of the secretary of state. More than 10,000 of the plates, which are rust-proof, were required to cover the structure. They were laid overlapping like shingles upon a rough board siding and a layer of tar paper. A coat of paint was applied to obliterate the numbers.

Growing Grass Turns Roof Into a Lawn

Covering a roof with growing grass might seem fantastic to most persons, but Louis Koefoed, an architect of East Rockaway, N.Y., has found it practical as well as decorative. Since he applied a roofing of sod over tar paper to his dwelling last fall he has experienced a welcome decline in his coal consumption. Moreover, he expects the heat-insulating covering to keep his home twenty degrees cooler next summer. Pipes along the peak of the roof spray the growing grass with water and keep the “lawn” roof green.

BUNGALOW BUILT IN TREE TOP MAKES AIRY HOME

Built among the sawed-off branches at the top of a tree, but equipped with a roof garden and other luxuries, such as are found in modern homes, the abode of a Civil War veteran is one of the sights of a soldiers’ home in California. Preferring the airy dwelling to one on the ground, he rented the structure and fitted up comfortable quarters. Two large rooms, a kitchenette, and a veranda reached by an outer stairway, compose the building.

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THEY’RE PLANNING Your Home in the Sun

ARCHITECTS at Princeton University have come up with a three-step system for designing your home of the future. They see such a house properly oriented to the sun, and plan it with the sun constantly in mind.

• The first step is to position the house on the site. In the architectural lab, a basic model of the home is placed on a movable board. A powerful light bathes the board in “sunlight.” The model then is moved to positions corresponding to the angles of the sun at the house site. Through such experiments the architects determine the best position of the house on the lot.
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That is one ugly house of the future. What were they thinking with those slab doors on the third page? “How can I make my house look like a prison?”

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A HOUSE OF MAGIC

By Thomas E. Stimson, Jr.

IN JACK FLETCHER’S new home, the windows close themselves whenever the wind blows hard for more than 15 seconds. They close automatically, too, when a rainstorm starts or when the outside temperature drops too low for comfort.

Guests never trip over the wires to a floor lamp in Fletcher’s living room. The floor lamps in this “House of the 21st Century” have no electric cords. Their fluorescent tubes, in fact, could be burned out and still operate perfectly when placed over certain spots on the living-room floor.
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