ARTISTIC CONCRETE HOUSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 211, 5 September 1924, Page 11

ARTISTIC CONCRETE HOUSES.

At the recent International Cement Congress, held in London, Colonel H. Vaughan Kent, who during the war was Assistant Director of Fortifications, said that it was quite easy to render concrete houses as dry and warm as the very best brick-built houses. There was no need to have the cold grey colour of natural concrete which so many people disliked, for tho outer half-inch or so of the slab could be made of coloured concrete, either a pure white or tinted. This opened out a new field for colour schemes, which, in tho hands of competent architects, had great possibilities in the future. The architects also could vary their elevations, and there need no longer be the cry that all concrete houses were hideous. The Wembley Exhibition ought to show the public what could be done with concrete from an architectural point of view. There were not enough.bricks or bricklayers to meet the demand for houses, but with concrete, where unskilled labour could be used for the larger portion of the houses, and where the materials could nearly always be found at or close to the site, and where the speed of erection was far greater than with bricks, there was a possibility of catching up with the demand in a. few years.