PLANS AND SECTIONS. BY FRANCIS VACHER, F.R. C. S.. THE HE scheme of lectures for this winter has been arranged to include many subjects more or less directly connected with house construction and sanitation. Already the important question of site has been fully discussed, and more recently the principles and practice of draining and sewering. This evening it falls to me to tell you something about plans and sections, not indeed with a view to enabling you to plan dwellings for yourselves, but that you may examine and study a design for a house intelligently, conpare one with another, and judge how far the requirements of health, comfort, and convenience are fulfilled. I have seen houses built by working men without the intervention of an architect, but the designs had been copied wholly or in part from others, and the results were not satisfactory. Architectural designing is an art that, like other arts, is slowly acquired, and proficiency in which is only attained by practice. Much skill and knowledge is also necessary in selecting materials for even the humblest dwelling. The materials should, of course, be good of their kind, and as far as possible obtainable in the vicinity, so that the capital invested may return a fair interest, with sufficient margin for repairs, painting, &c. All needless expense should be avoided, but building without an architect is no true economy.. There is, perhaps, no better way for a working man to familiarize himself with plans and sections than for him to measure up the house in which he lives, and draw a plan and section of it to scale. Any intelligent man can measure his room for a carpet, or the walls to ascertain the amount of paper-hanging he requires. Measuring up a small house is almost as simple a matter, and a very little practice will enable a man to sketch his house in miniature from the measurements taken. Plans, sections, and elevations are the names given to certain mechanical drawings which the architect projects, and by means of which he indicates to his clients, the builders and others, the form, size, and arrangement of the erection he has devised. A section (from an old word signifying to cut) is a representation of the appearance a building would present if cut asunder vertically— that is, from above downwards. A plan is a representation of the appearance a building would present if cut asunder horizontallythat is, on a plain—or viewed from a point over the centre of the roof. An elevation is a representation of the front, back, or side of a building. Plans, sections, and elevations are not drawn to represent objects as they appear to the eye, the portions near the eye being larger than those remote from it; but the drawings show every object in the flat-that is, put in to one scale. It will thus be seen that to show a house completely there will ordinarily be required several plans (one for the basement, one for each floor, and one for the roof), two sections (one from front to back and one from side to side), and four elevations. However, in dealing with the class of buildings which is to occupy our attention tonight-workmen's dwellings-it will be found, I think, that a front elevation, a section, and one or two plans will show a design with sufficient clearness. As regards size, for a classroom or lecture room one inch to a foot is a good convenient scale to work to, for deposit plans or book illustrations inch to a foot or less is commonly sufficient. Plans and sections when completed should show everything about a house, i.e., flues, ventilators, water service, cisterns, waste-pipes, soil-pipes, drains, &c., as from them the working drawings are prepared, and the architect is of course responsible for every detail of his design being efficiently carried out. I pass on now to the question-What are the requirements of a wholesome dwelling in which men, women, and children can live with self-respect, and enjoy such privacy and comfort as decent people have a right to? Briefly, I would say it is essential that every dwelling-house should be built of sound material on a clean foundation; that it be dry, warm, ventilated, well lighted, and drained; that it have a pure water supply and sufficient sanitary accommodation; that its chimneys draw properly, and that its rooms be large enough to afford adequate air-space to the inmates. The essential requirements of a workman's dwelling are the same as in all other dwellings, only the accommodation provided for each person has to be more restricted. Even so-called luxuries, such as the clothes-boiler and the bath, are as necessary to the workman as to others, and if we cannot find room for them in each house we should provide them in the near vicinity. Many of these requirements have been treated of, or will be, by other lecturers who are taking part in this course. I propose, therefore, without further preface, to proceed at once to the examination of the mechanical drawings I have prepared in illustration of my subject. The drawings are arranged in three groups, that is to say-1, designs for country cottages; 2, designs for town cottages; 3, designs for tenement houses. The first group includes four designs, each shown by a front elevation, plan, and section. The set marked "A" shows a cottage of the simplest description, suited to a single working-man or woman, or a married couple without children or lodger. The accommodation consists of a living-room, which is also the kitchen, a bedroom, a washhouse, a fuel store, and detached ash closet. The set marked "B" shows a cottage having similar accommodation, with the addition of an extra bedroom. It would be suited to a couple with two or three children of the same sex or a lodger. The set "C" shows a cottage similar to the first, with the addition of two extra bedrooms. Here the clothes-boiler is in a corner of the kitchen, a usual but not advisable arrangement. This cottage would be suited to a couple with children of both sexes. three designs are for semi-detached cottages, a saving of perhaps 15 per cent in cost being effected by building in pairs under one roof. The set "D" shows a detached cottage, the accommodation being similar to that provided in set "C," the rooms, however, being larger and higher, and including a washhouse. The walls of A, B, and C are of brick, nine inches (the length of a brick) thick ; the walls of D are of rough stone (the bedding surfaces being dressed), equal strength being obtained by making them one-third thicker twelve inches. The roofs are of slate or red tiles. Time was when rural cottages were commonly formed of clay and straw (cob building) or loamy gravel rammed down hard in the Pisé manner, and the roofs formed of combustible materials. Now, however, the approved practice is to construct country houses of the same materials as town houses-bricks. stone, or concrete blocks. These Let me then consider these designs in detail; but before doing so, I desire expressly to state that they are not put forward as model designs in every sense—that is, as affording the maximum of sanitary advantage for the minimum of cost. I show them simply as examples of rural cottages, varying in size and accommodation, and illustrating some points in construction, to which I ask your attention. First, as to the walls. The sections show at the bases a widening out of the brickwork, technically termed the footings. The rule is that the depth should be not less than two-thirds of the width of the wall, and that the bottom should be twice as wide as the wall. The footings should rest on solid ground, or stone or cement concrete. It will be seen that although the enclosing and cross walls of the first three cottages are all nine inches thick, they are each constructed in a different way. In the first the wall is solid, bonded in the usual (Flemish) way; in the second the wall is hollow, the bricks above the footings being set on edge, headers and stretchers alternating in each course; while in the third the wall is made of courses of headers laid flat, alternating with courses of stretchers set on edge end to end, leaving horizontal tunnels in the centre of the wall. The second method saves one-fourth of the bricks which would be used in a solid wall; the third method saves one-fifth. Elevations, as well as sections of these walls, are shown. Walls thus hollow or tunnelled are not only more economical and lighter than solid walls, but they are dryer, less easily penetrated by heat or cold, and for all practical purposes as strong as solid walls. In party-walls the hollow is useful in acting as a check to the passage of sound. Notice that in all the walls a damp-proof course is shown. This may be made of sheet lead or asphalte, slates laid in cement or anything impervious to moisture, and should be about six inches above the level of the adjoining ground. Next, as to floors. The first, as you will see in the section, consists of six inches of cement concrete tiled over. The second has a three-inch foundation of clean, dry ground, and on this three inches of asphalte, the surface being carefully finished with small stones, making a hard smooth top. The third has a floor of wood biocks. A foundation of broken rock or bricks, or clinkers or other dry material, is put in and rammed. This is covered with asphalted cloth, on which are placed the blocks, three inches thick, the section forming the tread being across the |