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7
The problem of meeting the demand for
increased accommodation and convenience in
houses has been met by the builder, not by
increasing the frontage, but by developing and
expanding the back addition. This, of course,
economises the more costly portion of the site,
the frontage; an economy which, in the case of
virgin building land, ought to be completely overridden
by the paramount considerations of the
healthiness and amenities of the houses which
lend to such land its enhanced value.
The development of the "back addition" has
been in the direction of increasing depth and
breadth and height. In the more recent houses
it has itself become the parent of a lateral
projection leading to the formation, partial or
complete, of "well holes," on to which the rooms
of the main building, and the offices ranged
around the well hole, open. (Figs. 7 to 12.)
The effect of this is that the merest chink of
skylight gets access to the rooms thus shut off
from anything approaching an open outlook.
Quite apart from aesthetic considerations, the light
reflected from brick walls has lost enormously in
quality and quantity as compared with that proceeding
directly from the sky.
It is less intense, less actinic, and is robbed
of those qualities which are essential to healthy