Evening star., 1936-05-30
MODERN INTERIORS.
URGED FOR HOMES.
Magazines Architectural
Editor Addresses Five
States Realtors.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

1ND1ANAPOLlS, lno., May oU~
The interior planning of the conven-
tional house of today badly needs
bringing up-to-date. both in layout OF
rooms and in interior use OF modern
+. materials and equipment, j. Harold
Hawkins, architectural editor Of NC
Calls magazine, told realtors OF five
States gathered here today for the
great lakes regional convention OF the
National Association Of Real Estate
Boards.
McCall's magazine in April began
publication each month of the home
of the month. chosen by a national
realtor committee of home builders
as the most attractive house actually
being built that month.
THE proper use of new building
materials and equipment is the best
way for home building to catch up
with itself after five years during
which it had been dead" Mr.. Haw-
kins said Proper use begins with the
design of the house itself. Not so
much its interior design, as the design
of the space to be inclosed. The eX-
terror can be worked over to suit any
personal preference as to appearance.
after the interior has been properly
designed for the use of new materials
and equipment.
Adaptability Objective.
"The shape, the arrangement, the
size of each room, the uses to which
the rooms can be put and the equip
ment of the rooms must be such that
they adapt themselves to the way we
live in 1886 and not such that we
must adapt the way we live to their
physical limitations.
"A home built today without proper
Insulation, automatic heating and
provisions for air conditioning and
modern kitchen and laundry will be
obsolete in just few years time"
The sad part about homebuilding as
1t begins now to come to life is that
it is starting where it left off five
years ago, Mr.. Hopkins said. He
urged that it catch up with the atti-
. tude of functionalism that is in the
mind of people today.
Commenting on new possibilities for
today's house he said:
In the coming market for houses
there is going to be more and more
stress put on what we call gadgets.
Perhaps features is a better term.
What I mean is not architectural
gadgetS, but comfort-giving gadgetS.
GadgetS that make for more livabil-
ity in home. Air conditioning. to
= some degree, is gadget,' in the sense
mean.
r-conditioning. broadly speaking,
ranges from the ordinary electric fan
to the complete, modern installation
of a central unit to warm or cool, to
humidity or dehumiGify, to clean, to
circulate and to automatically control
all these adjustments of the atmos-
phere inside house. No house ought
to be built and offered for sale with
out some attention being paid to air.
conditioning.
Kitchen Should Be Complete.
Just as the bath room, the kitchen
ought to be complete when the house
is sold. Complete equipment that is
part Of the house will go on the
mortgage for time payments Just as
do the shingles on the roof.
Perhaps rs per cent of ownership
of cars is in families occupying de-
tached dwellings. With the streets as
clean as they are, and the automobile
as Cleanly inclosed as it is, and the
dependence upon auto transportation
so universal, it would seem only COM
mon sense to include the housing of
the automobile as fundamental as the
housing of the family.
There is growing tendency toward
safety from fire in homes. From the
standpoint of detached dwellings there
are methods of construction with any
kind Of materials or combinations of
materials that will assure satisfactory
protection from fire hazards in home.
One common fault with the average
dwelling is the infiltration of outside
air. The items to be considered in
this connection are insulation. weather.
stripping double glazed sash or dou-
Bile windows, caulking, and, of course,
good construction methods, which, in
many instances, includes the use of
good building paper or felt