Better Housekeeping

Without his expensive extras, man is a bare-skinned tropical animal. Unlike the mink, he has no fur coat of his own; unlike the robin, he cannot fly south under his own power. If he insists on living in cold countries, he must create small areas of artificial tropics and stay in them most of the winter. He calls these refuges "buildings," and he is forever trying to make them more comfortable.

Architects believe that modern buildings can, and shortly will be, a great deal better than they are now. One reason is that modern science has been asked to tell architects what indoor environment man really wants and needs.

The November ARCHITECTURAL FORUM, out this week, devotes its entire issue to this collaboration between science and architecture. One section deals with heat, a vastly complicated subject. Mere control of temperature and humidity is not enough: the air must have the proper amount of movement. The walls of the room must be at the right temperature. A person can have chills in a room with cold walls, even though the air around him is comfortably warm.

Planned Heat. The air conditions in a house, office or factory must suit the activities of the people who live or work there. The more physical work that is done, the more heat the body develops. A secretary or a housewife mending socks wants warmer air than is needed by a basketball player or a steelworker. Modern architects measure the requirements of each activity and devise a heat environment to fit it.

Light is studied in the same way. Since human eyes get tired when forced to adapt themselves continually to contrasts of brightness and dimness, lighting experts are trying to tone down the bright spots and light up the dim spots. A properly lighted room, by modern standards, is apt to have walls painted in varied shades and colors. The light comes from large, diffuse sources. Instruments such as typewriters and blackboards are apt to be colored in a way that does not contrast too much with the rest of the "light environment." (But light experts are careful not to eliminate shadows entirely: people feel uneasy without them.)

Filter Walls. A building's walls and roof used to be considered mere barriers. They might be decorated on the outside, but their main purpose was to keep the weather out. Modern architects think of a wall as a filter between the outside and inside environments. For example, the wall of a factory in a hot climate should reflect outside heat and absorb inside heat, passing as much of it as possible to the outside. In a cold climate, the wall should gather all possible heat from the sunlight, while keeping inside heat from moving out. Modern materials, such as sheet metal, mineral wool and glass brick, allow the architects to design efficient "filter walls."

Thus far, the new architectural doctrines have been used chiefly in factories and office buildings. Houses are still pretty oldfashioned, partly because people don't want their homes to "look funny." Also, houses present a more difficult problem. People do a wide variety of things in their houses, and each activity requires different conditions. The environment of the living room, where Junior is picking on Little Sister, may not be suitable to Dad, who is listening to the radio.

But the architects are confident that modern science and technology, with proper teamwork, can solve these problems too. Sound-absorbing walls in one end of the room can smother Little Sister's screams. Proper acoustic treatment of the walls at the other end can improve the radio's tone.

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