PLANNING BETTER FACTORIES

Grey River Argus, 14 August 1937, Page 5

PLANNING BETTER FACTORIES

t * ** “ ? ,IMPROVEMENT INCREASES ‘ PROFIT. ’ “Better factories, which assure , better conditions for workers, give ' better profits,” was practically the I text of a recent address to English ; architects by Mr A. Perry-Keene, one j of the heads of a large British motor- ' manufacturing company. I “We who study analytical figures,” he said, ’’are very well aware of the , tremendous effect of temperature J and humidity and light upon the hu- 1 [ | man being when we come to measure [ [(output. Invaribly when the shops are ■ I warmed up and' the darkness is with 1 ; us in the winter, there is a direct and 1 J measurable drop in production, but [so soon as the light days come again ■ ! the rate of production rises. From . that we have learned a lesson, and if ' I any of .you come to our works you pwill see the sort of thing that is go- j .[/ing on. I ought to explain that our ;! works are a legacy of the War .[period; most of the buildings were ( I I put up in a great hurry from 1914 [ ; onwards, and they were the standard [ i type of that time. What we are do- . [ ing is to put up over these' shops a ;! skeleton framework, 25 ft. high on ’ i the average, so as to provide light ‘ « and air, and this has an immensity j : of glass area. We put up these mush- . room tops over the sheds while the j . workmen are there, and the work is , . going on, and as soon as the new ( • skeleton is finished we pull down the , ; roofs, walls and scantlings of the old ( ■ building, still with the men work- [ ing inside, and we find that by this r method of replacement we are able [ •j to increase output and secure better [ ! working conditions all round. j “We can visualise in the reason- [ i ably near future that olfice engin- c Leers, with their planned selling and f ! their planned manufacture, which , 1 co-ordinates time to the last degree j i will be wanting a new style of facI tory which allows of real co-ordina- c ; tion and synchronisation of the flow t of material. Present-day factories ■ are very deficient in this respect. The ! material cannot flow as it shouP'. j like a river with its various tributar- - its and without any jumpiness. c •‘Looked at from the point of view c of saying: ‘What service can I give ( Io the world in order that I ma;, a ! make a suitable living?’ I cannot help thinking that architects and f planners must admit to themselve ; what we engineers freely admit t< c ourselves, that we are on the edge o' t ■ a new world. We have not yet rem e ly begun. We have only to look a> 1 what we have done in the last tpn ■ years.” ' ' I During the discussion on the aai dress, Mr L. H. Bucknell (President e ’of the Architectural Association) sai< • ! that what had struck him was the , 1 lack of understanding which seemeo to exist betwen industry and architects. Industrialists seemed to look lupon architects ds curious, unbusinesslike, aesthetic people who put elevations of art on a building. They g were not concerned only with ap- s pearances. They were very muc g concerned with planning, not only jj for a particular process, but for a whole district, or even for the coun- a try. The old idea ( which the indus- j, trialist held of the architect was that. j. he was a man to be called in to make r the front of his factory look beauti- c ful. His factory was not always a j. J good machine, and many modern E • factories were not good machines, j ’ either. They were not often planned t for ultimate development, neither r were they planned for their effect on v their own local district or on ad- c joining districts or on the whole, i often they just grew; from houses or sheds they spread and spread, houses s followed, and the countryside was r ' ruined. That .could not be called \ ' planning for industry. The indus- i ‘ trialists must collaborate with the i ’ architect and give up the idea that ' his function was concerned only with i ' elevation and style. Architects were J concerned with knowing the indus- 1 j trialists’ processes from the raw mat- ’ ' erial to the finished product and its j ’ distribution, and they were much more concerned with that than with elevations or with what was so often i ’ called architecture.