Part 13

There are not many architectural motifs that can be used in designing the small house, and the ones which are employed over and over again are fundamentally a part of the construction. The plan must build up into block forms, because of the requirements of construction, and the designer has only a handful of shapes that make good roofs, for the same reason. The varieties of dormer-windows that he can put on the roof are limited to a few that are capable of being reasonably constructed. He cannot be original in the forms he selects, for they have all been thought out before. He should know them as he does the alphabet and build with them as he builds words with letters.

For example, take the plan of the small house. Can there be much room for originality here? Usually there are at the most four rooms which must be arranged on the ground floor of the small house: the living-room, dining-room, kitchen, and pantry. On the second floor are generally placed the bedrooms. Does it not seem reasonable to assume that all of the best combinations of so few rooms must be quite limited in number, and that the chances are that they have already been thought out? Many a young designer has labored enthusiastically upon what he believes is his original layout for a small house, only to find later that his solution has been already worked out and perhaps a trifle better. When an inventor tackles any particular problem, his first step, if he is wise, is to consult the patents which have previously been issued along this line, and then he will know what has been done.

Try as hard as he will, no designer can get away from the fact that the cheapest arrangement of rooms in his small-house plan makes a square unit and builds a square block house, but that such a plan is one of the most difficult forms to make pleasing to the eye. For this reason the room arrangement, which gives a rectangular-shaped house, is more often adopted. But we often tire of too much repetition of the rectangular house, and designers try to vary it a little. There is not much leeway here, however. By adding a wing at right angles to the main rectangle of the house, we can have an L-shaped plan which is easier to give architectural variety to, but very uneconomical, for the number of linear feet of exterior wall for a house of this shape is just as great as that for a house which is a rectangle in plan, as long as the L and as wide. This also holds true of the U-shaped plan and the T-shaped plan and the combination of the T and the L shaped plans. In fact, as soon as the designer tries to get away from the simplest rectangular shapes in the small house, the economic reins pull him back, and he must go slow in selecting too picturesque plans. Limited, therefore, in his possible scope, the real work of the designer should be one of perfecting the acceptable solutions which have been already worked out. Only once in a generation are absolutely new arrangements stumbled on.

On top of these various-shaped blocks, which these plans will form, a roof must be erected. Here again one would think that the architectural motifs would be quite varied, and yet when the matter is studied it is not the case. There are only five fundamental shapes of roofs which can be placed upon these blocks, and two of these types are really the same, and another ought not to be employed, so that, after all, there are actually only three fundamental roof motifs to use. These are the gable roof, the gambrel roof, and the hip roof. The wall-gable roof is merely a type of end treatment for the gable roof, and the flat roof is not suited to the average small house in the country or suburbs, because of traditions.

In the small house the designer has the choice of either placing these roofs above the second floor or placing the second floor within the roof. Where the former is selected he sets for himself a very difficult architectural problem—that of trying to make the proportions of a house limited in ground area fit under a roof placed too high. This has rarely been solved with any satisfaction, for in nearly all cases the house looks too high and stilted. The comparative drawings show how true this is. Notice how house _A_ and _B_ look stilted, while house _C_ has a charm which no manner of designing would ever add to the former. Is it not a fact to be reckoned with that the small house is best solved architecturally if the second floor is placed within the roof? Economy of material is certainly secured in this way, and the construction is greatly simplified. The chief difficulties are to properly ventilate these rooms under the roof, and to give them good lighting without making too many and too large dormers. This is a hard problem, but it has been solved successfully. The Dutch gambrel roof was developed for this purpose, and there has been no doubt as to its beauty, except when wrongly used by placing it above the second story or poking the second floor through it in one long, single dormer.

It is quite evident from the above how important the roof designing is in the small house. It goes without saying that the simplest arrangement of roofs is the cheapest to build and the easiest to maintain. Every valley means a leak at some later date, for as careful as may be the builder, the history of roof valleys shows that they leak sooner or later. The designer cannot freely mix his roofs either. Gambrel roofs, hip roofs, and gabled roofs do not go together harmoniously, without considerable study, and as a general rule they should not be required to do so. The usual methods of construction of these types of roofs are indicated well enough in the drawings and need no explanation. The ridge-poles in all cases are not of any structural importance, but act as alignments for rafters. For this reason they are made only an inch thick. Hip rafters have much the same function in hip roofs. Whenever valley rafters are needed, these must be designed like floor girders. If dormers are built into the roof, it is customary to double the rafters around the openings. Where gable dormers are constructed, one of the valley rafters must be extended to the ridge-pole, or else the rafters will collapse.

Even when it comes to the design of dormer-windows, the limits of originality are quite restricted. The drawings show all of the possible types that have been used with any success. Variations in the proportions and the details of these motifs is about all that the designer can hope for, and yet this is one of the hardest problems to solve. The correct designing of dormer-windows is a very rare thing to be seen. How many houses of modern Colonial style have ugly dormers! They are usually made too large and too wide and fat. The dormer-windows used in the old Colonial houses were narrow and high, and in those proportions were their charming appeals. To-day a double-hung window with weight-boxes is used in these dormers, and the whole width made too wide because of these additions to the sides. This is a warning that the designer should be careful in adapting old motifs to modern requirements. This particular problem has been correctly solved with the use of the weight-box, but how many times it has not been solved is evident on all sides. Another unfortunate use of the dormer-window motif is the extension of the second floor up through the lower slope of the gambrel roof. This cuts away any legitimate lower section of the gambrel roof, and in order to preserve it, the designer projects it outward from the ends of the house, and has it skirt by the side of the second floor like an added toboggan-slide with no earthly reason for its existence. Then, too, the prairie-schooner dormer, the semicircle one, and the eyebrow dormer are certainly types to be used with great care, for they can become eyesores without effort, and they cost a good deal to construct. Where the dormer is to be made inconspicuous the flat-roof type has been successfully employed, but the roofing material on it should be tin or copper. In some of the trap-door types of dormers where the pitch is very slight, the roofing material ought to be of sheet metal. The sides of dormers are made less conspicuous by covering them with the same material as used on the roof, but this is not always desirable. However, all vertical joints of dormers with the roof should be carefully flashed to prevent leaks.

The treatment of the gable ends of dormers is practically the same as that required for the treatment of the gable ends of the main roof. Here again, although on the face of it there seem to be innumerable ways of treating the gable ends of roofs, yet there are comparatively few methods. The drawings show about all the possible ways, and any types which appear to differ from these can be shown to be merely variations. The simplest method of treatment is to place a small moulding under the ends of the shingles. A variation of this can be made by adding a wide board below the moulding or a course of shingles running parallel with the edge. The classic cornice can be used, but great taste is needed in handling this motif, for any pitch which is not of the traditional classic pediment form is apt to look badly. The verge-board motif comes from half-timber traditions, and is generally used in a very careless fashion. In general, it usually looks best when some visible means of support is made a part of the design.

The shingle imitation of the thatched-roof gable is one of those amusing architectural fads which do not have very deep roots, and sooner or later are forgotten.

The wall-gable treatment is very dignified, but is usually associated with larger houses, but when simplified it has a charm which none of the other motifs can offer.

Other than these few, there are no common motifs to use in adorning the gable end of a roof. This and the previous statements only go to prove that the originality of design in the small house is limited within a narrow scope, and that the real beauty is not obtained in trying to find different forms, but in trying to use the traditional structural forms in the best proportions and giving careful attention to the details. In fact, it has been said that house designing is largely an assembling, into pleasing general proportions, of carefully designed traditional details.

XIX TRADITIONS OF BUILDING FROM WHICH OUR MODERN METHODS ARE DERIVED

_Importance of Tradition_

The art of building has grown by evolution, like other things in this world. The carpenter who builds in wood to-day builds according to certain customs which come down to him from centuries of carpenters. Modern methods of constructing the small house have all human history for their background. When we speak of modern methods, we merely refer to those which are used at this time, as they have evolved from past experience and been considered satisfactory. To hear some architects and builders talk, one would think that modern America had the monopoly on good construction, and that our system of building was newly invented. How often have we heard remarks like the following from the self-styled practical man: “The genius of the present age is eminently practical and constructive. Improvements of every kind and ingenious contrivances for easily effecting results, which in past ages were only accomplished by slow, laborious effort, ... etc.”

But they were saying this kind of thing in 1858, for the above is quoted from a book of this date, so that even the practical man is traditional in his remarks about building.

There are also too many young men to-day wasting their time discovering what they think are new ways of building, but which have been known for centuries and discarded as unsatisfactory. If they would only study what had already been done, they would save themselves a lot of trouble.

_Styles of Design Change, but Construction the Same_

The styles in designing houses may change from year to year, or more likely from generation to generation, but the methods of building and the traditions in back of them continue on, with only slight changes which mark the evolution of the art. In as brief a period as we have had in this country to produce domestic architecture, we can notice very distinct styles of design, but running through them all are similar ways of building. Our earliest Colonial houses were built according to traditions brought over from England. These traditions in turn had deep roots in Europe, back to primitive days, when houses were not much more than temporary, movable shacks.

There is, however, one general trend through which building methods seem to pass. First, we have rather heavy, clumsy ways of building; this is followed by a long period of experimental cutting down of the materials of construction and standardization of parts; following this comes the stage of extreme lightness of construction, when the builders go as near the limit of safety as possible, and then accidents occur which tend to discredit the system.

The early English houses were built of heavy oak-trees. Later half-timber houses used smaller structural members and more standard sizes. These traditions were brought to this country, but it was soon found that heavy oak was not necessary for their stability, but that some of the native soft woods would answer the purpose. The thinning-down process continued, until we developed the frame dwelling of balloon construction which is practically built of 2 by 4 pieces throughout.

We are now having a building code formulated by the United States Department of Commerce, which is intended to establish the minimum requirements for small-house construction, so that greatest economy of material can be secured, but also a precedent set for the minimum cutting down of material in building. In the compilation of this code this tendency to reduce the quantity of material used was very evident in the discussions which centred around the problem of whether the brick walls for small houses should be 12 or 8 inches thick. In Colonial days they thought nothing of building them 2 feet thick. To-day we hesitate at building them as thick as 12 inches. In fact, our building codes show no uniformity of opinion on the matter, and our experts disagree. The preliminary form of the above-mentioned code has settled upon an 8-inch thickness for walls not exceeding 30 feet, and made additional allowance for an extra 5 feet in height on the gable end of the building.

The process of thinning down is still going on, as this indicates.

The illustrations representing briefly the historical progress of styles in domestic architecture in the United States are given to show how these styles have varied, and impress the reader with the rather constant undercurrent of construction methods throughout these changes.

In the early Colonial houses the wooden frames were built of heavy oak timbers which were hewn into shape and dressed down with the adze. Sometimes rafters and joists were sawn, and the further along we progress in time the more we find the saw being used.

If we now jump to the period between 1865 and 1889, we find that the awful atrocities of architecture were being built in the East with similar heavy frames, although slightly less massive. Where tradition was less strong in the West, the balloon frame had grown up, but during the same period houses of equally bad design were built with one or the other systems, showing that the system of construction had very little to do with the style of architecture. Even consider the variety of styles used in modern domestic work, and then one can realize that all of these different types of buildings are built much in the same way. Good design has apparently little relation to good construction, although good design is improved when it expresses the construction. We often see very beautiful houses set up for moving-picture plays, but these are built of flimsy stage scenery. We have also seen very ugly houses which make us curse the builder for having built them so well.

_Fundamental Building Traditions Inherited from England_

It is from England that we have inherited most of our building traditions of domestic work. The earliest methods of constructing a home were much the same for all European countries. Woven brushwood of the crudest sort was undoubtedly the first beginnings of domestic construction. The next step in advance was, according to a German theory, invented by a woman. It consisted of erecting leaning poles and stakes and filling the space between with inwoven wattlework. The shapes were conical, like the Indian tents, but later the gable roof shape was adopted because of the greater interior space allowed.

In building the gable-shaped houses the early builders used very heavy and massive construction for the ridge-pole and its support, for they believed that this upheld the rafters. This tradition was kept alive until quite recent times, but now we know that when rafters are supported at their base, the ridge-pole practically takes none of the weight and need only be used for ease of erection.

But to our ancestors the important problem in first erecting the house was to secure the substantial support of the ridge-pole. Obviously the erection of two forked trees at either end of the ridge-pole made an excellent solution, but when the room was long this meant that the interior had to be cluttered up with interior posts. We find then that one of the primitive methods in England of eliminating the interior posts was the adoption of the cruck system of construction which is shown in Fig. 2. By selecting two bent trees and placing them together in a shape like a wish-bone, the ridge-pole could be well supported without interior columns. By placing cross-tie beams on these bent trees and extending them outward, the plates for supporting the lower ends of the rafters could be held in position. This permitted the carpenters to erect the exterior walls independently of the roof, a thing which they seem to have desired.

There is another variation of the above method of supporting the ridge-pole, and that is shown in Fig. 3. Instead of selecting a bent tree, one was secured which was upright for a certain height, and then which bent to one side with a branch. By placing two of these trees together, a perfect end was formed for the house. However, this was not a very good type, since it meant the selecting of very unusual-shaped trees.

For this reason the system of post-and-truss construction, which is shown in Fig. 4, was the natural outcome of the above. Diagonal bracing at the corners evidently was found to be useful in resisting high wind-storms, and it was usually employed.

There apparently remained a distrust of masonry walls among the carpenters, for they continued to support the roofs entirely upon heavy timber framing, and records show that the exterior walls were built up after the roof-framing had been completed. There are evidences that the early types of walls, after the primitive woven brushwood walls proved insecure, were made like a barricade of trees; that is, they were merely a continuous line of vertically placed tree-trunks. This, of course, was a ruinously expensive type of wall when timber became scarce, and it is no wonder that it grew to a system of construction like that shown in Fig. 5. Even this required a good deal of wood, so that the filling of the space between the timbers rather logically became masonry or plaster on lath. However, the method of building shown in Fig. 5 has all of the elements of the system of construction used in framing modern exterior walls. The most important difference is in the size of the timbers used.

The half-timber construction of the Middle Ages was only the artistic treatment of this crude system of building. In drawing number 6 is a very simple half-timber house which shows practically no attempt at all to decorate. The construction is perfectly evident, and there are no curves and carving used to ornament the building, as can be seen on some of the more elaborate houses of the cities. This simple building system was the traditional background of the English carpenter, and it is not at all extraordinary that he brought his methods of building over to this country.

Even the custom of calling in the neighbors and feasting them when a house-raising was celebrated came directly from English traditions. The old post-and-truss construction of the early English houses required framing on the ground and then lifting into position afterward. Records show that the people from the surrounding countryside were called in to help, and their wages of hire were paid by the house owner with a huge feast. In early Colonial days the nearest neighbors were likewise called in to help raise the frame, and the host was supposed to feed the gathering, after the work was finished, and make a jolly party of eating and drinking—a sort of social debt, but not looked upon as wages, as in older days.

The hard climate which the earliest American colonists had to face and also the abundant supply of wood which lay at their very doors were factors which slightly altered the traditions of building. After the house had been framed and the spaces between the timbers filled with plaster or masonry, the exterior was covered over with clapboards or shingles as an extra covering against the weather. The use of clapboards or shingles as an exterior covering of course was not new, for many English farmhouses show that it was used in that country. But with this difference in exterior appearance, the framing underneath was the same as shown in Fig. 7.

_Revolt against New England Traditions_

It was only a matter of time when the thinning-down process began to make itself evident in the traditions of Colonial carpentry, and from its clumsy beginnings it evolved into the more or less standard form of construction which we call the brace-frame.

The difficulty of securing good labor in the West, and also the increasing use of the power sawmill, made it possible and necessary to standardize a quick and easy method of building which would meet the great demand for houses in rapidly growing communities.