Brass Tacks

Of all the problems which have occupied modern architects, the most unpretentious is the most difficult: how to give urban people decent places to live. In the U. S., the Federal Housing Administration has given great impetus to individual home builders, stimulating architects to think in terms of small-house design. Newly available to them and the public last week were two important sources of light.

> ARCHITECTURAL FORUM for April brought discussion of low-cost houses down to brass tacks, the two sharpest being 1) that more than 70% of U. S. families now earn less than $2,000 a year, and 2) that the 35% with incomes between $1,000 and $2,000 in good times and bad make up a vast and virtually untapped market for building. For this 35%, houses must cost from $4,000 down. ARCHITECTURAL FORUM gave architects virtually the first survey of the problems of designing houses in this price range, which they have hitherto ignored.

A portfolio of 50 houses actually built for $1,000-$2,000 families, with an accompanying study of cost factors, shows that such houses must not cost much more than $3,300. Under present conditions this usually means either 1) a two-story box with six rooms or a one-story bungalow with five; 2) a lot not over 40 ft. wide; 3) quantity building on more or less identical plan. The challenge to architects: to face this fundamental problem in design, which now in many cases goes by default to builders without benefit of architect, with frequently characterless results.

> Exhibited at Manhattan's John Wanamaker department store were five designs for nifty, economical commuters' houses which won $1,000 apiece in the biggest low-cost house competition yet held. Each was planned to be within the reach of a family man earning $2,100 a year, yet each had two acres of ground and plenty of character. Explanation : sponsors were four fervent back-to-the-land organizations whose lucid publicist is Author George Weller of Homeland Foundation. For reducing cost factors which the ARCHITECTURAL FORUM found irreducible by the individual, they postulated cooperative buying of land by "homestead associations" of several families.

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