New Var-Time Houses
War-time house-building goes forward on a considerable scale, chiefly for the accommodation of munition workers; and air-raid dangers, combined with shortages of timber and steel, are responsible for some very untraditional developments in architecture. Cement being now plentiful, the tendency is to substitute concrete for wood or metal wherever possible—i.e., for roofs, floors, window-frames and door-frames. In the case of the roofs, the policy is to substitute a flat top for a sloped one, and to make its concrete of a thickness to withstand an incendiary bomb. Opportunity is also taken to design one of the ground-floor rooms as an air-raid refuge, surrounded by concrete sufficiently thick for it to give protection like that of a surface shelter. Such houses—practically fire-proof and to a large extent blast-proof--have obvious recommendations for the exceptional time that we live in. But no one pretends that they have yet been made architecturally attractive, or that streets of them escape forming local eyesores. That surely ought not to be incapable of remedy ; and the Ministry of Health might well commission some absolutely first-class archi- tect to go more thoroughly into the matter and submit designs.
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