Building site

“ It was a consequence of the natural conformation of the rugged site to which the building had to shape itself, of the need for defensive towers, and of the conditions of climate calling for high-pitched roofs, more or less broken by dormers and chimney-stacks. ”

“ Having laid out the alleys and determined the streets, we have next to treat of the choice of building sites for temples, the forum, and all other public places, with a view to general convenience and utility. If the city is on the sea, we should choose ground close to the harbour as the place where the forum is to be built ”

“ It may be an objection in the minds of some persons to the various plans here submitted, that we have connected the out-buildings immediately with the offices of the dwelling itself. We are well aware that such is not always usual; but many years observation have convinced us, that in their use and occupation, such connection is altogether the most convenient and economical. The only drawback is in the case of fire; which, if it occur in any one building, the whole establishment is liable to be consumed. ”

“ Within the short period, therefore, of seven months, owing to the energy of the contractors and the active industry of the workmen employed by them, a building has been erected, entirely novel in its construction, covering a space of more than eighteen acres, measuring 1,851 feet in length, and 456 feet in extreme breadth, capable of containing 40,000 visitors, and affording a frontage for the exhibition of goods to the extent of more than ten miles. ”

“ We may, in truth, be said to have no architecture at all, as exhibited in our agricultural districts, so far as any correct system, or plan is concerned, as the better taste in building, which a few years past has introduced among us, has been chiefly confined to our cities and towns of rapid growth. ”

“ The general requirements are—simplicity of arrangement; economy of space; capability of extending or curtailing the building without destroying its symmetry as a whole, or interfering with the general arrangement, it being impossible to determine the exact extent of roof required until a late period of construction. Adaptation for the erection of separate portions of the building at different periods. Conveniences of ingress and egress, with facilities of access to all parts of the Exhibition, either from the exterior or interior. ”

“ Some of the houses are handsome, but the greater number have a compressed, squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulsory narrowness of frontage in proportion to the height of the building, and all of them are bright and new, as if they were just finished to order,—a most astonishing proof of the rapid development of the city. ”

“ I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house-building which have wide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the rooms open, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the use of them all. In hot climates this is the object of the central court which cuts into the body of the house, with its fountain and flowers, and its galleries, into which the various apartments open. When people are restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide central portions of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this central hall can be made a pleasant sitting-room. ”

“ Such need not be intricate or difficult of construction to look well, but must be honest and useful. They can be neither unless visible, and here we see the holy alliance of use and beauty; for the character and expression of a building depend almost wholly upon the roof. You will lose, too, under the flat roof, the roomy garret of the old high-roofed houses. ”

“ There should be at least four out-buildings, detached from the main edifice and from each other, and in such positions as shall at once answer the purposes of the institution, and be consistent with the symmetry of the whole establishment: each building should be, as far as practicable, devoted to a distinct purpose ”

“ The stilted building itself, containing two compartments separated by a narrow hallway, is made accessible from the tangle of weeds and caked mud by a crude ladder-like few steps of filth-covered boards. ”

“ By means of ante-chambers and porches, in form of long, low galleries, with their openings turned to leeward, warmth is insured in the interior; and social intercourse is promoted by building the houses contiguously, and cutting doors of communication between them, or by erecting covered passages. Storehouses, kitchens and other accessory buildings, may be constructed in the same manner, and a degree of convenience gained which would be attempted in vain with a less plastic material. ”

“ In recent years the mill-owners have abandoned the old low, two-story type of building with its narrow windows and dingy aspect of gray stone, and erected in its stead these enormous structures—the only approach to the American sky-scraper I saw in England. They are magnificent mills, far superior to those you will see to-day in this country, clean, bright and—every one I saw—new. ”

“ You have drawn the entrance flight of steps in perspective, as the Chinese do ... but that is a trifle. What will you build your walls with? Masonry, rubble-work, masonry and rubble mingled, or stone and bricks?
Fig. 3.—Roof Plan.
“Let us study this together. When you draw a horizontal or ground plan, independently of the arrangements, you have to consider how your buildings shall be covered in. For the most important question in a building is that of the manner of roofing it, as every building intended for internal use is a shelter. ”

“ I have quite made up my mind, that the best situation for almost any sort of building is an advancing point of land; not an insulated summit, let that summit be high or low, sheltered or unsheltered, and never in a hollow. Prior park near Bath, though standing very high, is in a hollow, and loses half the praise its architecture would obtain, if it were better placed. Half way down, on the point forming one side of the little valley in which it stands, it would be better sheltered, have a more pleasing variety of view, be more accessible, and form incomparably a better object. ”

“ Build gatehouses in your wall, little ones, to show off, by contrast, the massive splendour of your Temple. These honesty pods are a most useful substitute for mother-of-pearl. You can paste them on square pillars or on the fronts of boxes (houses I mean) or make sloping roofs of them by sticking them on folded cardboard fastened at the proper angle by tapes glued about a third of the way up. But as a rule sloping roofs are not good in Eastern cities. A grass garden with paths of honesty, or a shell-built fountain basin in the middle, will add a charm to any city square. ”

“ Meagre houses stood down one side, there was a hosiery factory, a great blank with myriad oblong windows, at the end, a street of little shops with flagstone pavement down the other side, and, for a crowning monument, the public baths, of new red brick, with a clock-tower. ”

“ In the ground plan will be seen a brick, or stone partition—which may extend to such height as may be necessary to contain the bulk of ashes required for storage within it—on one side of the building, to which a door gives access. ”

“ It may sometimes slightly enhance the value of the business property facing it by concentrating travel on that side of the street, and in the largest cities furnishes a desirable outlook for high office buildings. The most detrimental effect of such ft public building in a small park is felt in the early stages of a city, where the park checks the. extension of the business centre. A public building surrounded by a park, if located in a residence section, tends to attract good residences, the outlook for the park more than off-setting what travel comes to the public building. ”

“ The object, in addition to our own designs, has been to apply practical hints, gathered from other structures in use, which have seemed appropriate for a work of the limited extent here offered, and that may serve to improve the taste of all such as, in building useful structures, desire to embellish their farms and estates in an agreeable style of home architecture, at once pleasant to the eye, and convenient in their arrangement. ”

“ We can now be quite methodical and workman-like in our building, and can learn to use all the parts economically and according to principle. We can discuss ground plans, cellars, foundations, basements, roofs, eaves, chimneys, entrances, and windows, and thus can make almost habitable dwellings and miniature models of larger objects. ”

“ If, then, increased building accommodation and improved buildings are to be provided, the solution of the difficulty would appear to lie in a better arrangement of buildings and in the adoption of cheaper methods and materials of construction. ”

“ The articulation of the surfaces is of decisive importance because if matter and materials blend with the surrounding open space, the borders of the building disintegrate. If the borders of a building disintegrate, the building itself vanishes. ”

“ The enormously thick walls and tiny windows of this part had in the last century driven the family into building the new wing, and the old one was used now as a storehouse and a cellar when it was used at all. A splendid park, with fine old timber, surrounded the house, and the lake, to which my client had referred, lay close to the avenue, about two hundred yards from the building. ”

“ First, however, before building the mould for a residence, school, theatre, office building, or factory, 296 the engineer decides what strength his foundations must have. The foundation for a small residence is an easy matter, but when it comes to a big factory, or an office building of a dozen stories or so, the most careful work must be done beforehand. In the old days, when it was desired to sink the foundations of a building down to bedrock, they used steel or wooden piles, but these will rust or rot, and the modern way is to use concrete piles. ”

“ The building itself, a large, prominent structure, stands out on the slope of a sterile mountain side, the road sweeping up to its level in a long, elliptic curve. We find much people here congregated, and omnibuses and footfarers are still arriving and departing. ”

“ Occasionally a tall building looms above the mass, or it is surmounted by church-spires and the fanciful towers of modern construction, or by a high chimney pouring out black smoke; but it is a symmetrical scene in the general view, though in many parts the surface of the actual city is very uneven. ”

“ Figure 4 shows a block-plan on a very small scale of the apartment-house, and a block-plan on the same scale of 40 “towers” adjoining each other, and having the same available space as the apartment-house. These plans show how much more land is required to give the same accommodations (minus the conveniences and luxuries of an apartment-house) in the “tower” system than in the “flat.”
The shaded portions in each block-plan represent the aggregate of available room in each case. This shows very strikingly what an enormous proportion of land and material is wasted in the “tower” system. ”

“ That a considerable saving must attend the system propounded will be evident from the fact, that, instead of a corridor, on the first floor, at least twelve feet wide, as constructed on the prevailing plan, one of six feet, or less, simply as a passage for communication, is all that is required, and thus a saving of about that number of feet in the thickness or depth of the building, in each story above the ground-floor, is at once gained. ”

“ It may be expected, perhaps, that in treating so fully as we have of the several kinds of farm building, a full cluster of out-buildings should be drawn and exhibited, showing their relative positions and accommodation. ”

“ With long narrow blocks, as in New York, the development would be more irregular, the tendency being to alternate high and low buildings. Further variations occur where a skyscraper owns one or two lots in an adjoining tract in order to block the erection of another high building, as with the Park Row Realty Building, and the Broad Exchange Building, or the purchase of low buildings across narrow streets to insure light and air, as with some of the life insurance company buildings. ”

“ The ground-level of the house should be of the right height to command the prospect. Should the architect be so fortunate as to obtain a site for his house where the ground rises steep and abrupt on one side of the house, he will get here a series of terraces, rock-gardens, a fernery, a rose-garden, &c. The ideal site for a house would have fine prospects to the south-east and to the south-west "The principal approach should be on the north-western face, the offices on the north-eastern side, the stables and kitchen-garden beyond. ”

“ All these chambers, and the passages leading to and from them, being arched, contribute to support one another; and while the interior large arches prevent their falling into the center, and keep the area open, the exterior building supports them on the outside. ”

“ He demolished all the little wretched huts in which they were huddled together before, and erected a handsome commodious stone edifice, making it to consist of twenty different apartments, that each of the old men might have one entirely to himself, and also constructed a large room, in the centre of the building, for their common reception, and comfortably provided it with every necessary accommodation ”

“ Under certain circumstances which will be obvious, it is permissible to instal first a group of buildings of a temporary nature only, the future site and permanent buildings to be chosen later when the main portion of the estate comes into bearing. ”

“ The variety which is produced by the principal mass, as, together with the projecting columns, it is gradually brought before the eyes of the spectator who walks round it, is very great; and the purpose of the owner, who wished to leave a large trust-estate, and at the same time a visible monument of his wealth, is completely obtained. And while the building appears in all its magnificence, when viewed from any spot in the district, it also forms the point of view for a most agreeable prospect. ”