Evening star., 1939-11-04
low-Rent Housinq
Errors Are Laid
To Ignorance
Needs and Means of
People Overlooked,
Technical Director Says

The commonest errors in planning
low-rent housing arise from igno--
ance of the habits, needs and means
Of the people who will live in the
houses, A. G. Shire, technical di-
rector of the United States Housing
Authority, says in symposium on
architectural service for public
housing projects appearing in the
Octagon, publication of the Amer
ican Institute of Architects.
'The average tenant of subsidized
housing will earn less than $1,000 a
year." Mr.. Shire points out. "Ap-
parently an American architect
cannot imagine family income OF
less than about $1,000 or $4,000.
Hence, the whole tone of his ap-
proach becomes unrealistic. When
he gets down to brass tacks he is
still several economic strata above
reality.
What hope is there for housing
II architects cannot break through
their accumulated spiritual cobwebs
and meet the need for invention and
simplif1cation, finding a new kind Of
design that is consistent with the
new human ana physical materials
they are working with? 1t is time
architects were more concerned with
the real needs of low-income fam
lilies than with charm, symmetry,
traditional style and bourgeois
standards.
New Idea to Architects.
Low rent is the sine qua non of
subsidized housing and under the
United States Housing Authority
program low maintenance costs are
to low rents what eggs are to an
omelette. That is a new idea to
most architects; they have been
used to thinking of maintenance as
q small item compared with inter-
est and taxes.
THE architect of subsidized hous-
Ing must think of things in the
terms of the care they need. And
he must see that the maintenance
money is spent for things that will
make life easier for the tenants.
For example, anything that requires
periodic painting adds to the rent,
and the more elaborate it is the
more it costs to paint it and, hence,
the more it adds to the rent. Nat
urally, therefore, there should be a
minimum of trim and that minimum
should be simple.
What good is five-member cor
nice to a woman who has to cook,
wash and otherwise care for a five
member family? What she needs
is an efficiently planned place, easily
cared for and cleaned, in which to
bring up her family. Rooms de-
signed for proper placing of furni-
ture are more important than evenly
spaced windows A surprising num-
ber of projects are submitted in
which apparently no consideration
whatsoever has been given to where
people will sit or where beds are to
go or where children are to study
or play.
Maximum Tenant Use.
''The family wants to look out on
trees and shrubs. grass and flowers.
But they do not want to watch
gardeners cutting the grass, pruning
the shrubs, wedding the flower beds.
when their rent is helping to pay
that gardeners wages. Low-rent
housing projects should be laid out
for maximum of tenant use and
tenant maintenance instead of being
planned and cared for as a show
place. park with Keep off the
grass signs all about.
Then there is insistence on banal
symmetry. usually in connection with
the administration of community
building Or the architect designs
row houses to look like a sumptous
Georgian mansion, crowds them on
the land, and nearly dies when he
learns that tenants hang out their
wash and that garbage cans have to
be placed somewhere for collection ~