“UNIT” HOUSES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16607, 3 December 1919, Page 9

“UNIT” HOUSES.

AN ENTERPRISE OF STEEL AND CONCRETE. A i on. re to town is being built at Braintree, in Essex. Describing a visit to see the early stages of the undertaking a Westminster Gazette representative says; W T o inspected a house which is already occupied, watched bricklayers mortaring block- to block in unfinished houses, and examined the plant tor obtaining gravel (with an American steam shovel), for mixing Iho grave! with sand and cement, and for making ‘unit’ blocks. “This ‘town’ is being erected for the employees ot the Crittali Manufacturing Company, Limited, through whose steel windows the tenants will look out on the world. Tho Baintreo Co-oper-ative Homes,, Limited, a public utility society under the Act. have called in the Unit Construction Company, Limited, to build the houses. “The house no saw was two-storied, with a flat roof. The exterior resembled stone, was simple, and not unpleasing. It cost ,C(i7S to build, with an additional IMO for outhouses and cement, courts; about a shilling per cubic foot. It has two sitting rooms, four bedrooms, and a bath-room, and a general air of no nonsense. There is a little of Miss Maidstone, indeed, about that house. What is not concrete is st; el. The window frames arc of steel, so aro the cupboards, so are the doors and staircase. It scents superfluous to add that the house is ‘bre.proot. Also the house is said to bo ‘cool in summer and warm in winter’—like a tube railway.

•'I here are to bo (ill houses on the estate, of nine types, ranging from r £7OO (plus £-10) to £543. The blockmaking machines turn out 5000 blocks a day. About 4000 blocks go to make a cottage. There is no waste, for a yard is taken as the unit, and every standardised component is a multiple of that unit. Nothing is ‘left over.’ “ ‘The simplest possible construction.’ says the contractors; ‘a foot rule , is not even necessary.’ ■‘l, asked a director to tell me exactly how long a period was required ! in which to build a ‘unit’ house of tho type ae had scon. Put in that form, apparently, the question was not so easily answered. ‘Given a clear field on a large scheme,’ he replied, ‘wo can erect 100 houses in seven months.’ ”