The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-10-02
Constance D. Leupp.

It begins to look as though the housing Millennium were upon us and numbered the days of Shylock the landlord. Those whose opposition to socialism
 is based on the fear that it will in-
 crease the servant problem, need no
 longer hesitate to come out openly and
 embrace the system. For Milton Dana
 Morrill,, a young architect in Wash
 ington, has designed a $1,200 house in
 which all the work is play, and ser
 wants would be more underfoot than l useful. Being built of concrete it is | indeStructable, so it needs no insur-
 ance and no repairs: 1t is germicide to | such a degree that it's inhabitants are
 practically doctor-proof. insulated so they are re-proof. Sweeping l (which is done with a hose) becomes a pleasure, coaling festival. and the
 garbage man a myth.
 The house can. moreover. be extreme
 ly pretty: it was awarded the first l prize at the International Tuberculosis
 Congress in 1908 because of its sani- | tary character, and it's many other
 merits would entitle it to a round | dozen more medals.
 | MT. Morrill, is much interested in the
 proper housing of wage earners. and, | as he points out, their problem has
 changed entirely within the last few l years Not very long ago. the work
 ingman had to live near his work. To- | day, increased transportation facilities l and lower carfare combined with the | rising value of land in the factory | districts has increased the residence zone to many miles around our large cities, and MT. Morrill, comes oppor-
 tunely with his designs for Separate | houses for working people.
 1 The remarkable feature of his house | is the large number of new and ex- cellent devices it contains not only for | the convenience but for the luxury of | livingAand these are so simple that one wonders they have never been | thought out before. The secret of the low cost which is claimed for it is that it is built of reinforced concrete from sectional moulds of a standard size which are to be used over and over again. Heretofore. the great ex- pense of concrete construction has been due not to the expense of the ma terial but to that of the moulds which are made for each building. MT. Mor- rills plan is to have not less than twenty-five houses, constructed in each locality from the same set of moulds: since the moulds are made in sections. however, one set admits of a limited variety in design.
 Window and door frames are cast in steel. The walls of the rooms within have no plaster or wall paper. but are finished with a smooth concrete which may be tinted. or on which wall paper design may be stencilled. The
 
 composite terra-cotta colored material. warm to the touch. light and porous in appearance but impervious and dur able. There is a slight slope to the floor of each room towards a plugged tile spout. which drains if skilfully built. into window boxes below.
 All corners are rounded to give no harbor to dirt, and all fixtures are sweeping consists merely in removing the furniture. attaching the hose and flushing ceiling. walls and floor of each room. "
 There is no furnace in the cellar of the house. t''Did you know that one- third of your heat is wasted to warm the cellar you wish to keep cool?' the architect perth ately asks.) Heat for the whole house and for cooking is provided by the range in the kitchen. A cement jacket prevents the kitchen from being overheated and provides the space for the hot air chamber. | Flues from the fire places throughout the house are arranged about the smoke-stack, forming natural ventila- tion. The garbage is disposed of in a very simple but novel manner. cast iron | chamber is built into the chimney and | in this the garbage remains until thoroughly dry, when it is dropped in l to the fire box by means of a damper. 1 The ice box built into the wall and opening both into the kitchen and out | doors. can be flushed with the hose. | In winter. a, screen on the outside is | all the protection needed. and no ice is required.
 The coal hole is on the roof and is filled by means of a chain block from the ground. CNote how much cleaner | this process is than the ordinary meth od.) It will hold two tons of coal 1 which is distributed by an automatic self-feeder connecting with the range, | controlled in the kitchen by dampers. |
 The walls of the house may be hol- i low admitting of a free passage of air | about the house which is thus practi- | cally insulated like a thermos bottle, | only by a blanket of air instead of by | a vacuum. Theoretically this insures | an even temperature throughout the | year. Practically, however. it has been | demonstrated that the concrete itself 1 is such a poor conductor that the air blanket is not necessary.
 Instead of piazza, darkening the | rooms on the ground floor, and useless | in winter. the house has on the roof | a solarium-a glassed-in room, fur mace heated. itself surrounded by a | veranda roof in the shape of awnings, and with a tile and concrete railing | surrounding the whole. The roof can be partitioned and used for sleeping, the Solarium providing al quick re- | treat in case of rain.
 The concrete house has equal possi- bilities for the city or the suburbs.
 Count out the items of repairs and | insurance and estimate at what figure | a real estate company could build and | rent such houses and get a fair six per cent. return on it's money. AL | ready the Charity Organization Socie- ty of Youngstown, Ohio, is capital | lzing an enterprise for the building of | these houses. and the same is the case with an enterprising newspaper in Nebraska. MT. Morrill, is now at work designing a simple house. a mere con- crete box of one story, which shall rent | for four or five dollars a month.
 have attempted to describe the main good and novel features of the house-there are others less important that, have not been mentioned. The architect has been guided in his plans by a genius singlarly free from the tradition of convention. He has built at Chevy Chase Ga suburb of Wash ington) a house incorporating many of his novel features: he has not as yet built a set of them at the low cost which he claims is possible. He is, of course, by no means the only experi- menter along the line of inexpensive concrete construction. When he does oor h