MODERNISE YOUR PRESENT HOME!

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 463, 19 September 1928, Page 7

MODERNISE YOUR PRESENT HOME!

Electrical Appliances I

j Up-to-date Furnishings

[Gas Heating & Cooking [

j Home Refrigerating

Bathroom Comfort !'

Bring your house up-to-date ! Domestic science has made great strides in recent years —enjoy the advantages —increase the value of your property and make yours the

HOME BEAUTIFUL

Landscape Gardening

Wallpapers & Painting

(By

“PENATES”)

Homes of To-Morrow

PEEPING INTO THE FUTURE What We May Expect WE are often told by those who contemplate building houses of th’eir own that they must have a house embodying all tluj latest labour-saving devices. I know what this means. It means nothing. For men (especially men) are so conservative when it comes to it that, rather than depart from the habits of their forefathers and invest a little capital in a good cause, they will condemn their wives to drudgery for ever, in the usual dust-collecting rubbish-harbouring homes of old England.

Times are undoubtedly changing. The domestic servant will no longer dally with us. Secondly, the supply of electrical energy is being organised on such a scale that it will soon be as commonplace as the supply of water. Thirdly, as soon as there is increased demand for the marvellous new materials and labour-saving equipment —which already exist — there will be standardisation and mass production; therefore, cheapness. But fourthly, and most important, is our modern scientific attitude of mind which says: Why should this thing be? Why should it be necessary for two or three people to work all day in a small house just to keep it tidy? And why should there be such things as dust and dirt and disorder? ENEMIES IN THE HOME Let us consider for a moment what are the greatest enemies of mankind (or rather womankind) in the home. Apart from the constant attending to helpless men and children, which appears to be inevitable, they are briefly five: Dust, soiling of clothes, linen and utensils, coldness, untidiness (men again), and those enemies of the mind—noise, disorder and lack of beauty in surroundings. Yet how will they deal with these evils in the future? In the first place, they will realise that, in order to make the perfect labour-saving house, it must be specially planned light from the start. They will realise (as apparently we do not) that one cannot behave tidily in a house if its plan is like a nightmare. The sizes of rooms will be in direct proportion to their usefulness. Thus, halls and passages, sculleries and separate dining-rooms and parlours will be either reduced or eliminated altogether, and living rooms will be much larger; as cheerful and as large as an artist’s studio. As to construction, the structural parts will be standardised. The -walls, floors and ceilings will be built of some cementous or metallic substance, non-eonduetive to heat, or damp, or sound. Especially the latter, for the world is noisy enough now; what it will be like 50 years hence one trembles to think. Walls and floors will be capable of easy “unbuttoning” (as the Americans call it). That is, the house will be taken to pieces, if necessary, for cleaning (as a car is) or for replanning, or extension, or removal to another site, or for re-use by someone else. These standardised parts will permit of considerable variety in size and general design. The house will be colourful and bright, and will appeal—as an airplane appeals—by its clean lines, and the efficient arrangement of its parts. NOISELESS ROOMS The special principle of planning the best houses in cities will be that the living rooms may be completely insulated from the outside world; therefore from cold, dust, noise and foul air. These rooms will open on to verandahs, which will be closed in by great glass doors when the weather is bad. as it usually is, and opened when the weather is warm and sunny. The whole house will be artificially ventilated and heated from top to bottom by a free circulation of electrically cleaned and warmed air, either from a plant beneath the house

or from the duct of a municipal supply. This method is as modern as the Americans, and as ancient as the Romans. Great windows will invite the sun, when there is any (the glass being of a kind which lets in the ultra-violet rays); and when there is no sun, they can turn on the artificial sunlight. ' DISPOSAL OF REFUSE As to soiled linen and utensils. Washing and drying apparatus will be fixtures in every home, and as paper plates and cups—on paper table-cloths —will be used for all ordinary meals, it will be simply necessary for someone to take the tablecloth by its four corners and pitch it, with contents, into the refuse container. Talking of refuse brings me to the question of its disposal—a muchneeded refoi’m. In our home of the future refuse will be disposed of immediately, not left to decay and smell while waiting for the dustman. It will be placed in a paper cylinder, which will be dropped into a pneumatic tube and whisked along to the municipal dust destruciior, in the manner they take your money at drapery stores. ORDER AND COLOUR Order and colour will be the keynotes of the modern home. Consequently there will be a great reduction in the number of movable objects and useless knick-knacks with which we lumber up this earthly existence, and through which we pick our way and bark our shius. Most furniture will be built in, and fittings, such as the radio-televisor, and the automatic letter writer, will be fixed. Every part of the home will be colourful and bright; the kitchen no less than any other spot. Rooms will be treated in broad colour schemes by means of movable and reversible coloured wall-panels. Order within, and its truthful expression without. They will discover the great fount of beauty which lies in perfect order and arrangement. Beauty is the gift of God to truth. There is only one doubtful factor in this bright picture of the future, that is the mere male himself. If he is anywhere near as untidy as I am, he will undo all the good I have here suggested.