The model village and its cottages

by William Alexander Harvey

OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS.

[GARDEN PLAN]	23
[BLOCK OF THREE COTTAGES (ELEVATION)]	27
[BLOCK OF THREE COTTAGES (ELEVATION)]	35
[THE “CABINET” BATH]	51
[CORNES’ PATENT BATH]	52
[SMALL COTTAGE INGLE (ELEVATION AND PLAN)]	54

THE
MODEL VILLAGE: BOURNVILLE

INTRODUCTION.

In introducing the present work on “The Model Village and its Cottages,” it would be certainly out of place to discuss the housing problem; there is, nevertheless, an aspect of this question to which the attention of the reader should be briefly directed.

The housing problem is no longer one in which the poor in the congested districts of great towns are alone concerned. A far larger section of the people is affected,—a section which includes not only the labouring class, but also the skilled artisan, and even a class of the people still more prosperous. In the light of present sanitary and hygienic knowledge it is at last recognised that the housing conditions of the past will not suffice for the future. The difficulties besetting reform are necessarily very great, yet with the movement now afoot—not only in this country, but also on the Continent and in America—it is not unreasonable to expect that before long important changes will take place. Now that politicians and economists, as well as sanitarians, are identifying themselves with the movement, it is clear that if it is to result in lasting good, the attention of the builders of these new homes for the people must also be engaged; and the field that thus presents itself to the efforts of the architect is a large one.

No better testimony to this need can be afforded than by the typical latter-day artisan-suburb, and it is indeed in this very suburb that the housing problem confronts us in what threatens to be in the future one of its worst aspects. Desolate row upon row of ugly and cramped villas, ever multiplying to meet the demands of a quickly increasing population, where no open spaces are reserved, where trees and other natural beauties are sacrificed to the desire to crowd upon the land as many dwellings as possible, and where gardens cannot be said to exist—such are the suburbs which threaten to engulf our cities. That they do not adequately meet the needs of the people is beyond all question.

The remedy most frequently suggested is that the people should themselves undertake and develop housing schemes collectively through the municipalities. It is pointed out that, if nothing is done, the municipalities will before long have a slum problem on the outskirts of the town to deal with, and it is urged that they should have greater power over the development of land in the extra-urban districts. It is recommended, again, that the authorities should exercise the powers they already possess. The Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, in their Report to the Government of 1904, insisted most strongly, it will be remembered, on the necessity for preventing the creation of these new slums. “The local authorities in contiguous areas which are in process of urbanisation,” it declares, “should co-operate with a view to securing proper building regulations, in furtherance of which end the making of building bye-laws, to be approved by the Local Government Board, should be made compulsory on both urban and rural authorities; attention should also be given to the preservation of open spaces, with abundance of light and air. By the use of judicious foresight and prudence the growth of squalid slums may be arrested, and districts which hereafter become urbanised may have at least some of the attributes of an ideal garden city.”

In the case of municipalities undertaking the development of land, emphasis should be laid upon the advisability of securing the services of experts both for the laying out of the land and for the designing of the houses, and in order to obtain variety in the latter it is recommended that the designs should be the work of several architects.

At present, as is well known, the rows of houses in what has been called the artisan-suburb are usually the work of the speculating builder, who buys land at a cheap rate and builds to create ground rents, often selling the houses at a bare profit, or even under cost. As the maintenance of the property does not fall upon himself, it is not surprising that the class of building erected should be that generally known as “jerry-built.”