STEEL HOUSES

Evening Star, Issue 19271, 9 June 1926, Page 5

STEEL HOUSES

CONSTRUCTION 111 SCOTLAND An exhibition which attracted the attention of many students of the housing problem was opened in Edinburgh in March. In presenting to Scotland the first Scottish Housing and Building Exhibition, the organiser, Mr T. Percy Bentley, aimed at assisting local authorities and the building trade in general in observing and testing the latest developments in housing construction. The exhibition, which was under the patronage of the Edinburgh Corporation, included examples of the most modern methods in building, constructing, outfitting, decorating, and the general management of a home. In an interview Mr Bentley said that the exhibition had served a useful purpose. Invitations had been issued to 700 architects and members of housing committees of town and county councils. These experts had come from Wales, Ireland, and all over Scotland. In addition, the public had come in such numbers that cheap tickets were issued in a sixty-mile radius. The turnover in money and business was so good that the exhibitors were anxious to book space for the following year. Perhaps what interested the general public most was the lleith steel house. Tins house is built on the same system a.s a ship's deckhouse, the outer structure being composed entirely of steel plates three-sixteenths of an inch thick and flanged to give the necessary stiffness. The seams of the plates are bolted and packed with thin felt and red-lead to exclude damp and prevent corrosion. This type of house has been approved by the Scottish Board of Health. Edinburgh has had practical experience of concrete construction, and is now finishing a scheme at Lochend. where 1,000 houses have been built of duo-slab. Other parts of the city show experiments of groat interest, and all the various types of plant and machinery used in the making of concrete were at work in the exhibition.