Evolution of Flats

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 818, 12 November 1929, Page 10

Evolution of Flats

Young City’s Growing Pains Written for the .ST.Y by K. <l. BADDEI.EY.

i To lovers of Dickens, also, the desription of those “residental •flats” at the Inns of Court, are quite familiar; here again, we find the seed — sown so many years before—starting to germinate. But it was left to the latter days of Queen Victoria, for the flat to take a firm hold in England. Toward the end of the last century, a forward movement can be traced to the vicinity of i Victoria Street. Condon. The appeal was made to the well-to-'fto, and that : is the reason why, even in our times. : the Victoria Street flat has to be ! reckoned among the best. The self-contained flat, is the one with which we, in New Zealand, are the more conversant, but the “maisonette,” where the accommodation is spread over two or more floors, and with its own private staircase providing inter-communication, is favoured in other countries. The “maisonette” is not likely to come into much demand here, for it seems | natural to the New Zealander to i desire his own home on the one floor. SERVICE FLATS There is still another class —the catering, or, as Americans like to call it, the service flat —and when its advantages are more fully understood it will undoubtedly become one of our established institutions. In the service flat, in addition to perhaps a. common lounge or other social rooms, and besides all Ihe conveniences of (lie self-contained flat, there is a dining room available to all, so that the occupants may adjourn to the dining room for dinner, just as (hough they were living in a modern hotel. In addition to the preparation of food, the modern service flat provides such other conveniences as the necessary attendance to one's suite, or even the service of meals in one's own private apartment.

ALTHOUGH wo tire very rnui'li iiuTinetl to think iho modern residential flat is not altogether ail innovation of the present day, but rather the cultivation ol a seed planted in the ayes past, and which has slowly cmif m fruition. ffoino- back into history, we find the niediatvai castle, the very first conception of our flat, where the retainers lived on the lower floor, and “my lord and lady” in the storey above.

Ir. lias recently been inferred in Auckland that a block of* flats cannot be healthy, should it cover more than half the building section. But it is not so much the amount of uncovered ground that is going to count. It is the ability of the architect, who carries out the design on modern lines, and obtains from nature all that is best. Surely a judiciously and well designed building, covering a much larger proportion of the site, can be more healthy than one covering considerably less, but conceived only with the idea of revenue production. LONDON’S APARTMENTS Could one say that such well-known examples in London as are to be seen round about the Marble Arch and the Royal Albert Hall, for instance, designed by such architects as R. Norman Shaw anti Frank T. Verity, do not conform to recognised and approved principles of town-planning, as we understand them? Assuredly no! Although all these buildings may not have all the “air-space,” that we, suffering from our growing pains, might consider necessary, they have been conceived by men capable of appreciating a site, and of putting it to the best use possible for the object in view. < Auckland is only following a demand that is world-wide. Flats are not going to inundate the country. They are regulated by supply and demand—but while there is the demand, let us provide the best. Let. us study and accept that which is best from all nations, but at the same time remember this: We are a British country, and the British architect of the Homeland has spent centuries in cultivating that seed whose growth we have been following, and which he has brought to full bloom—a plant, of which he may now be justly proud.