CONVENIENT HOUSES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 8 January 1927, Page 17

CONVENIENT HOUSES.

WOMEN AS ARCHITECTS. One of the professions for which women would seem to be specially adapted is that of architecture, particularly the designing of houses. The average housewife spends five-sixths of her time in her home, and she learns by practical experience the shortcomings of the average house. Hut for generations very little effort has been made by architects to study her convenience, and comfort. in cases where the speculative builder employs the architect economy is the guiding principle in the construction 01 houses, and no effort is made to provide labour-saving devices that will lighten the house work. But even where the architect is allowed more freedom, he generally shows a singular disregard for the housewife. Ln fact, when he is designing a house she seems to be the a.st person who enters his thoughts, instead of monopolising them. He seems to be unaware that it lies in his power to do a great deal to lessen the burden of house work, which consists in doing the same jobs day after day. In England, as the resuit of the destruction of those barriers which for generations debarred women from the professions, women are beginning to enter the profession of architecture. The degree of bachelor of architecture lias been won for the iirst time by a woman in the person of Miss -Nora Duivphy, of Liverpool, who i.s 22 years of age. In referring to her success, the Architects’ Journal expresses indignation at the idea that the entry or women into the profession will resu-it in an improvement in domestic- architecture from the standpoint of the housewife. “A good deal of nonsense is habitually talked about this matter, says the'journal. “If women succeed in becoming good architects, and it is to lie expected that many of them will, they will do so because they have the capacity to become good architects. and not in .any degree whatsoever because they happen to he women. If women* succeed in architecture such success will be partly due to their ability to resist the influences of those self-appointed champions of their sex. who would yet arbitrarily prescribe and curtail the architectural interests proper to women. These are the feminists who are for ever talking about cupboards and sinks, and who trv to mislead women into supposing that if they only bring to architecture their specialist’s knowledge of cupboards and sinks they would be capable of a notable achievement which would not only rebound vastly to their credit as designers, b»t would set a definitely feminine stamp upon architecture, greatly to the advantage of this art. “Let us take cupboards first. By clipboards the feminists invariably mean builtiu cupboards. A cupboard which is part of a suite of furniture has little merit in their eyes. Yet one is obliged to record the obvious fact that there must exist in the world millions of cupboards which belong to suites of furniture, and such cup hoards are not merely a relic of past times, but are still being turned out in large numbers by our manufacturers of furniture. Architects must provide space for these cupboards, which they certainly could not do if every room in a house had its builtin .shelves, in recesses, both natural and artificial. If we adopted such a policy we may be sure that the angry feminists would be the first to exclaim : “How like a man to put a shelf fixture m the very place where I. wanted to put the dressing table.” . , “With regard to the sink, “the sink of a height- that •spells inevitable

backache to the housewife,’ the male architect must acknowledge himself to be a frequent sinner. He can only olead in his defence that as housewives vary in height from 6ft to 4ft he cannot" make simultaneous provision for people of such widely differing dimensions. If he makes the sink an average height he has done all that maj reasonably be expected of him in tins particular.” If the Architects’ Journal reflects the standard of intelligence of tne profession, it is small wonder -hat 180 little progress has been made in domestic architecture in England. lhe complaints in regard to the sinks that produce backache do not come from 6-foot and 4-foot wives; if the Journal knew a little about human arclnteeture it would not be ignorant oi tne fact that women of these dimensions are somewhat rare. The complaints come from the average housewife, for wnom the architect is under the delusion that lie has been catering. The height of the sink is not the only complaint that the- average housewife makes in regard to it. She asks that the sink shall be made of leadless glaze china, so that it can be easily cleaned instead of being made of iron. She asks that the tap over the sink and the taps through the house should be nickel plated, or made of porcelain instead of brass. She asks that the plate rack should be placed near the sink instead of being hung on the other side of the kitchen, as is generally the case, except when no plate rack is installed. There are many houses in which the architect,' instead oi placing the sink in the kitchen, has placed it in an adjoining room called a scullery, and in consequence the housewife has to walk backwards and forwards between these tv. o rooms hundreds of times each day. Whenever she wants to fill a kettle, or to get a drop of water for her culinary work, she lias to go to the sink, and back to the stove in the kitchen. If there is a pantry off the kitchen, or a built-in cupboard jn the kitchen, the top shelf is always placed out of her reach, so that she has to get a chair or a step ladder when she wauts to put anything on the shell', or take anything down. The pantry or kitchen cupboard is generally placed as far away ns possible tfrom the kitchen window, where the housewife naturally places the table on which she prepares the meals, and in consequence she gets a great deal of pedestrian exercise walking backwards and forwards for everything sne needs. The average man rides in a tram or train to work, and would complain bitterly if he had tr> walk three or four miles every day. Tut the average housewife, who behmgs to tlie weaker sex, walks several miles every day getting through her housework —and most of this walking housework is caused by the fact that tie architect doesn’t know anything more about housework than the average man, though it ought to be part of the architect’s job to know a great deal about it. It would be a good thing if the training for the profession of architecture included a six months’ course of housework. There is a lamentable lack of cupboard space in the average house. The linen cupboard, when there is one, is generally a small, poky, dark place without sufficient shelves to store half the household linen, so that it can be readily got at when required. Built-in cupboards in the bedrooms are a, necessity in every house. The Architects’ Journal thinks that there is no space in the average bedroom for a. built-in cupboard, and a wardrobe. If that were the case it would he better to do without the wardrobe than the cupboard, for the latter doesn’t diminish the floor space of the room. But it is only in the very small rooms

that there would not be space for a wardrobe without blocking up the cupboard The average wardrobe is not big enough to provide hanging space for the average woman’s clothes, and when there is no cupboard the male member of the matrimonial partnership gets a very poor share of the wardrobe. Probably the only place for his wearing apparel is a trunk which has to be hidden under the bed. WHEN WOMEN DESIGN HOMES. When the profession of architecture is in the hands of competent women, hot and cold water will be laid on to the bedrooms, and built-in basins will be installed. The hreplaoes will be nickel plated, so that they can be cleaned in a few minutes without the application of black lead. The grate will be fixed on a swivel, so that the ashes can be emptied by turning the grate over, and letting the ashes fall into a shuit leading to a' stone welL in the basement. This is done in houses in Canada, where the work of cleaning a grate and laying a lire takes less than quarter of the time taken in New Zealand houses. When architects include a six months’ course of housework in their professional training they will realise that the operation of sweeping out a r«om can be simplified by the display of a little more intelligence in designing house's!. The chief tijoubio in sweeping out a iooin is to clean the corners where dirt congregates. The broom is too large to clean out the corners, and therefore the tidy'housewife has to bend down with a brush. In a six-roomed house there are about 40 corners, for iu addition to four in each loom and those in the hall, the architect scatters them about promiscuously in all sorts of odd places. A lot of time is occupied in sweeping 40 corners, and most of it would be saved, for, as far as sweeping is concerned, corners should be abolished by the insertion of a small curved piece of wood where the skirting boards join.