ALL-STEEL FLATS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22901, 2 December 1937, Page 5

ALL-STEEL FLATS

LET AT 10/. A WEEK RENTAL This week I saw an all-steel flat. Yon ■will probably think—as I did before ] saw the fiat —that this sounds very bleak and uncomfortable, something like the inside o/ a battleship. But the interesting thing about these all-steel flats is that, unless you are told, you would never guess that they are made of steel at all. The ones 1 saw are to serve as a model for working-class flats, to let at about 10s a week, states a London writer in a Sydney newspaper. One great feature of these flats is the speed with which they can be built. They are constructed of units which fit together rather like a child's building toy, and the floors and staircases are built into the steel framework as it rises, which makes things much easier for the workman. The doors, window-frames, ceilings, floors, stairs, and cupboards are of steel. In the labour-saving kitchens are steel sinks, finished in pale blue or pale pink or white, and in the neat and shining bathrooms are steel baths. Theso are not yet made in this country, and have to be brought over from the United States, but their cheapness and lightness compared with the ordinary porcelain bath is bound to interest our manufacturers over here. I was shown over the flats by the engineer who constructed them. He had just returned from India, and I asked him whether there was any future for steel houses in the tropics. " 1 think there definitely is,'' he told me. "Provided we can ensure proper insulation from the heat, steel should prove an excellent building material in the tropics. The units arc light to transport and easy to construct." , Another feature which interested me was that the rooms are soundproof. My guide played a loud gramophone on the floor of one of the rooms, and I went down to the room directly below. I could hear no sound at all. Just think what a boon this is in huge blocks of flats when the blaring radio or eternally squalling babv of one's neighbour becomes a real menace. There has been no attempt to introduce steel furniture in these flats, as it is still very expensive, and associated more with luxury flats and offices or cocktail-bars than with working-class homes. The model flat was furnished very pleasantly and inexpensively in modern light wood.