Some Reflections on Small Flats

Progress, Volume XIV, Issue 9, 1 May 1919, Page 495

Some Reflections on Small Flats

In view of the cry throughout New Zealand for more and better houses, the suggestion contained in the article we print below for self-contained flats is worthy of close consideration. It is from “Architecture,” the official organ of the Institutes of Australia.

When Sydney first caught the flat epidemic there was a general rush, to turn all manner of places into residential suites and make money while the boom lasted. Most of the places were structurally unfit for any such transformation, and the result from, the health point of view was deplorable. The city and North Shore became dotted over with collections of buildings in which two or three pokey dens, not large enough to be decent dog boxes, were offered to a gasping public at twice the rental of a five-roomed house with a garden. However, flats became the vogue and large numbers of people continued to seek them. More establishments were converted, and quite a lot of money gambled away on the new idea. But it was a. paying concern, and the people who had taken time by the scalp felt that they were going to get rich quickly. 1

Then one day someone put up something new in the way of flats. They were self-contained, each having its own bathroom and offices. They were larger, more airy, and being built for the purpose, superior in every way. The idea caught on, and more buildings of the sort were erected. 'Then, all in a day, as it were, the original flat became unprofitable, the residents thereof having started a general exodus to the new type. To-day, the original flats arc not paying interest on the money invested in them, and have a distinct tendency to sink back into the cheap and nasty state from which they should never have emerged.

To-day it looks as though the second generation of flats is going to follow the first. Another revolution is impending. Look over any number of flat buddings in Sydney and yon find that the idea that they are based upon is that of the old style of Unfurnished Apartments.” Truly, they arc selfcontained, and in one of them a couple can live a life of complete isolation. Too much so, in fact, for there have been cases in which sickness and accident have'remained undiscovered for a couple of days. They are merely glorified lodging-houses where instead of having only one room and sharingin the use of a common kitchen each tenant has two or three apartments and a bathroom. Only in half a dozen flat buildings in Sydney is there, a restaurant in the building for the use of tenants who do not wish to cook for themselves. Only in about three eases are there roof or any sort of gardens. And, in every case but one the writer knows of, the garbage has to be carted out through the dining-room, %nd the early guest is . always liable to rub shoulders with the vegetable-vending Chinee. '

That type of flat is doomed in the very near future. There is money in the construction of flats, but not of that sort. The isolation flat is going down before the community flat building, the big structure on the American plan, with its “dumb waiter” lift for the conveyance of goods direct to each suite, its proper refuse shoot, and its elimination of the milkman and Chinaman wandering up and down the corridors in the early morning and afternoons. The flat building of the future will be more on the lines of the old-time English private hotel. A restaurant is indispensable, and so is a billiard-room—perhaps several; also roof gardens, concert rooms, and so forth.

Such structures will be put up not by individuals, but companies. They will represent big capital. They will give all the facilities and advantages of hotel life combined with the privacy of m private home. They will cater for the man who requires only a large airy living room in which he can read, smoke or write any hour of the day or night, and who will have his own private bathroom, with hot water laid on at all hours. They will provide adequate accommodation for the family that wishes to spend a holiday in the city and dine either table d’hote or en suite,, as the spirit moves them. The other sort of flat building will suffer seriously by reason of the raising of the standard.' No

one who has stayed a month or so in the new type of flat will willingly go back to the old type where the afternoon guest and the fishmonger will arrive simultaneously at the same door.

Take this plan of the Warren apartments, kindly supplied by the American Wall Bed Company, of this -city. These modern flats are situated in San Francisco, a city where the climate and other conditions approximate very closely to our own. The building is owned and operated by the Scjimiedell Bstate Company, and is but one of several buildings of the same type erected by this company during the past six or seven years. This particular building contains sixty-four apartments, of which thirty are two-room apartments (each with its own kitchen, bathroom and dressing-room, or recess), and thirty-four three-room suites and offices. In

most cases there is an attractive sideboard in the dining room attached to the oscillating portal Avail bed fronts. The apartments are complete in every way, and the best brains of America have been employed to satisfy the most critical tenants. The lobby and reception room are a feature of every suite. We are informed that the rentals of these apartments ranges from £6 to £l3 (unfurnished) per month. However, what we wish to draw the attention of the Sydney investor to is that in these modern apartments the Chinee and the afternoon-tea guest do not rub shoulders in the lobby. Neither does the occupant wearily, drearily and disgustedly drag the refuse can out through the living and dining room to his front door to assault the olfactory

nerves of the casual guest. If the plan is examined carefully it will be observed that in each cluster of flats is a space marked “D.W.” —which being translated, means dumb waiter, Avhich, also being translated, signifies service lift. In this delightful type of flat no’ tradesman wanders along the multitudinous corridors. Down in the basement is an office at Avhich the tradesmen call and leave their goods. When the gentle Chinee arrives Avith his “spling callot” the receiving clerk or, housekeeper produces a list of orders. Mrs Brown’s list is read out first, and taken delivery of, and placed in the lady’s private locker. Then comes Mrs Jones’ list, Avhich is also placed in that lady’s locker. When Mrs Smith’s particular vendor arrives, her consignment is also placed in her locker. When the ladies require these things they

ring the housekeeper or the telephonette, and the goods come straight up by the D.W. lift, right into the kitchen direct. The house garbage goes down the same way. So does the laundry. No strangers invade the sacred residential precincts. The building is a palace of decorum and good taste twenty-four hours per day. Which is as it ought to be. Once that type of flat arrives in this city the other sort are simply going to fall down dead. All the people of taste and money will migrate .swiftly to where the dumb waiter toils so excellently in the interests of refined life. . ' ■ . i ' Then again, these splendid establishments supply on their upper floors, billiard rooms and concert rooms. There are roof gardens, where the tenants

can have meals served on summer nights. In every large building of the sort there is a ball-room, where the tenants so disposed can meet convivjally every night and indulge in dancing and social pleasure. Sydney is now ripe for the introduction of such flats. If Australians do not seize time by the forelock and erect them, then overseas capitalists will and make money out of them. Therefore, we have taken the liberty of warning such as propose to invest their hard-earned money in flats of the class of opposition they will be up against in the near future.