Bungalow, New Orleans
Nathan Kohlman, Architect
As already suggested, if you live on or near any of the other degrees of north latitude marked, imagine the center of the suns slipped around to that degree, and then draw light pencil lines across the chart parallel with the respective arrows. Do the same also for other parts of the year than the solstices which are shown here. For each succeeding month, move the center of the suns down and up from the solsticial points about a third of the distance to “E.” At “E” the sun has reached either equinox and will rise directly in the east and set directly in the west. Remember that for several days on either side of a given position of the sun, there will be no essential change in the direction of its rays that you need practically to consider.
But at the times, other than the solstices, while you can thus get the direction of the rising and setting sun, the sun-dial of our chart won’t exactly apply. What happens is that as the sun moves down or up from the solstice to the equinox, the summer hour spaces grow more uniform, while the winter hours grow somewhat longer. But with the general direction of the morning and afternoon light settled for the two solsticial extremes, the hour position of the sun during the between seasons will not be of so much importance.
Of course, you can’t have everything in this world exactly your own way, but by studying carefully the Orientation Chart in connection with your plans for building a home, you may get many valuable hints for selecting your lot and locating your house which will lead to arrangement of lasting satisfaction to you in the coziness, comfort, and attractiveness of your home. A sunny corner or a shady spot, where you need it and when you need it, may cure an invalid or develop a poet, as the case may be and as the years go on.
The Right Kind of House to Orient
Before you have the problem of orienting your home, you have the more important problem of deciding on the kind of home you intend to build. It is one of the most, if not the most, important question you have to settle.
In the first place, it is an economic question, for you want to be sure of getting value received for the money you expend. To do so, the house you build must, aside from its satisfactory design, be permanent; it must be easily and economically maintained; it must be comfortable and safe against fire; and it must be attractive. In a word, it must give you satisfaction in every way, inasmuch as you and your family are going to be in it a long time; or, if circumstances compel you to move, you want the house to make a persuasively attractive appeal to the intending renter or purchaser.
Such a house you can build of brick, the endurance of which has been demonstrated through thousands of years. “By frost, nor fire, nor flood, nor even time are well burned clays destroyed.” This permanence of brick construction means a saving on insurance rates, on upkeep, and on depreciation, while the material lends itself to the most beautiful and varied artistic effects. “Strength and beauty,” the essential characteristics of all good building, may be fully met in brick construction.
If you have not already seen The Story of Brick, you should send for a copy, as you will find in it many valuable suggestions.