I am enthused. This is a great initiative and I am really happy to have found your article on it this morning! The caveat here is the implementation. My mind fills with great opportunities, but who is capable of collating the many attributes, many of which should be cutting edge?
There were some really smart people involved in this program then, while the issues were not the same then at all. Energy was to be used, colonialism was not at issue, singe family housing was a given, transport was cars, sewage went in a pipe, we could assume with 25 year max rainfall ...
I really enjoyed this article! My parents were of the generation that built houses after WWII; these plans transport me to their homes. An uncle gave me his small-home idea books from the 1940s, and he remained intrigued by the Lustron home he visited in NYC, 1947(?). I've a picture of my cousins sitting at a fireplace much like the drawing in the 1st place winner. We had multiple bathrooms, however, and no coal bins. I'm a New Yorker yet lived in the Baltimore region for decades, which included ten years with Habitat for Humanity. We renovated row homes from ~1880 to 1915, with many on lots as narrow as 12'. James Rouse dedicated the first home I oversaw, and I was often at Cross Keys Village Square. Many Baltimore homes of the 1960s had radiant floor heating, generally hydronic, which generally failed by the 2000s. A few had heated ceilings--one had to be quite cautious when doing renovations.
I grew up in the era of these houses. There was a subdivision in Burlington which I think was called Roseland where all the houses featured radiant heated floors. The community gossip seemed to revolve around how people could learn to live without a basement.
Radiant floors! I want to know more about how those were done at the time. Copper piping in concrete? What kind of flow temp would they have used I wonder?
I did a gut renovation on a post World War II prefab house in Dartmouth Nova Scotia many years ago. It was the weirdest kind of construction I've ever seen! All the walls and ceilings where panels that were about 4'x10'. Each panel had sides that were 2x10s on edge with 2x4s going across them on the top plane and the bottom plane. I'm sure there was some good reason why they were designed that way but it was beyond me to figure it out. They certainly were not amenable to removing walls 😂
Lloyd, I thought you might enjoy this crazy article which was featured in Spotlight PA regarding a telephone pole wire that runs through a new apartment building in Philly:
Big fan but I'm sorry, I think this is a terrible idea, a solution looking for a problem that will not do anything to impact the need for new housing. As you've pointed out in other posts: We know how to do this, build the "missing middle" similarly to what was built prior to the 2nd WW.
Firstly, this was a product of issues of the 1930’s & 40’s & at the time, there was little or nothing in the way of building regulations in most of Canada. Ontario’s Building Code (OBC) for example only came into being in the late 1960’s. Not to diminish the needs of today, but in the late 40’s, between the pent up demand from both the depression & WW-2’s 12% (!) of the population being returning veterans, the shear volume of housing needed to be built was at a level far greater in percentage than the current needs.
Secondly, the fees normally paid to designers will be absorbed by developers with little of no savings to home buyers. The result will be endless soulless tracks of cul-de-sacs that will make Levittown look like Paris.
Third, we don't have a housing crisis we have a resource allocation crisis. With the average new home being significantly larger than those of the 60's, 70's, 80's & even the 90's with average households getting smaller, the result is in many cases we are OVER housing families & soaking up too much resources on too few people.
Lastly, Canada needs more Building Trades, Architects and Engineers. The OAA lists 4,735 licensed Architects in the province, about 1 per 3,380 people. The US it's 1 per 2,760 Sweden has over 12,000 architect or one for every 900! Canada needs more designers & easing licensing for many foreign architects. Colleges need to be funded to increase building trades & apprenticeships & high school students need to be encouraged to consider a trade. Trades are generally future proof livelihoods. AI may be able to help record a Beatles song, but AI can’t install a toilet!
Most of the names for the prairies and west coast are well-known here still. Not many people in the west in 1947, Berwick (47-65) who seems to have entered twice, became Thompson Berwick and Pratt, Raines (47-42) moved to Calgary and became Stevenson Raines: both old and gold chip firms. Sons of Chomik, LeBlond built careers in Calgary in the 1970s.
Plan 47-16 can still be seen in Montgomery in Calgary, along Memorial Drive where there was a whole neighbourhood of them built on the Bow River: 830 ft2, very cool flat roofs. So many of these non-competition plans are scattered along the edges of what is now inner city - the edges of what was a small CPR- based city before the oil booms.
I am enthused. This is a great initiative and I am really happy to have found your article on it this morning! The caveat here is the implementation. My mind fills with great opportunities, but who is capable of collating the many attributes, many of which should be cutting edge?
There were some really smart people involved in this program then, while the issues were not the same then at all. Energy was to be used, colonialism was not at issue, singe family housing was a given, transport was cars, sewage went in a pipe, we could assume with 25 year max rainfall ...
I pray that the path will be well executed.
I really enjoyed this article! My parents were of the generation that built houses after WWII; these plans transport me to their homes. An uncle gave me his small-home idea books from the 1940s, and he remained intrigued by the Lustron home he visited in NYC, 1947(?). I've a picture of my cousins sitting at a fireplace much like the drawing in the 1st place winner. We had multiple bathrooms, however, and no coal bins. I'm a New Yorker yet lived in the Baltimore region for decades, which included ten years with Habitat for Humanity. We renovated row homes from ~1880 to 1915, with many on lots as narrow as 12'. James Rouse dedicated the first home I oversaw, and I was often at Cross Keys Village Square. Many Baltimore homes of the 1960s had radiant floor heating, generally hydronic, which generally failed by the 2000s. A few had heated ceilings--one had to be quite cautious when doing renovations.
I grew up in the era of these houses. There was a subdivision in Burlington which I think was called Roseland where all the houses featured radiant heated floors. The community gossip seemed to revolve around how people could learn to live without a basement.
Gosh I miss hand drawn plans. Thanks for another great post, Lloyd.
Radiant floors! I want to know more about how those were done at the time. Copper piping in concrete? What kind of flow temp would they have used I wonder?
I did a gut renovation on a post World War II prefab house in Dartmouth Nova Scotia many years ago. It was the weirdest kind of construction I've ever seen! All the walls and ceilings where panels that were about 4'x10'. Each panel had sides that were 2x10s on edge with 2x4s going across them on the top plane and the bottom plane. I'm sure there was some good reason why they were designed that way but it was beyond me to figure it out. They certainly were not amenable to removing walls 😂
Lloyd, I thought you might enjoy this crazy article which was featured in Spotlight PA regarding a telephone pole wire that runs through a new apartment building in Philly:
https://defector.com/hmmm-something-is-not-right-here
Big fan but I'm sorry, I think this is a terrible idea, a solution looking for a problem that will not do anything to impact the need for new housing. As you've pointed out in other posts: We know how to do this, build the "missing middle" similarly to what was built prior to the 2nd WW.
Firstly, this was a product of issues of the 1930’s & 40’s & at the time, there was little or nothing in the way of building regulations in most of Canada. Ontario’s Building Code (OBC) for example only came into being in the late 1960’s. Not to diminish the needs of today, but in the late 40’s, between the pent up demand from both the depression & WW-2’s 12% (!) of the population being returning veterans, the shear volume of housing needed to be built was at a level far greater in percentage than the current needs.
Secondly, the fees normally paid to designers will be absorbed by developers with little of no savings to home buyers. The result will be endless soulless tracks of cul-de-sacs that will make Levittown look like Paris.
Third, we don't have a housing crisis we have a resource allocation crisis. With the average new home being significantly larger than those of the 60's, 70's, 80's & even the 90's with average households getting smaller, the result is in many cases we are OVER housing families & soaking up too much resources on too few people.
Lastly, Canada needs more Building Trades, Architects and Engineers. The OAA lists 4,735 licensed Architects in the province, about 1 per 3,380 people. The US it's 1 per 2,760 Sweden has over 12,000 architect or one for every 900! Canada needs more designers & easing licensing for many foreign architects. Colleges need to be funded to increase building trades & apprenticeships & high school students need to be encouraged to consider a trade. Trades are generally future proof livelihoods. AI may be able to help record a Beatles song, but AI can’t install a toilet!
Sorry, rant over
Most of the names for the prairies and west coast are well-known here still. Not many people in the west in 1947, Berwick (47-65) who seems to have entered twice, became Thompson Berwick and Pratt, Raines (47-42) moved to Calgary and became Stevenson Raines: both old and gold chip firms. Sons of Chomik, LeBlond built careers in Calgary in the 1970s.
Plan 47-16 can still be seen in Montgomery in Calgary, along Memorial Drive where there was a whole neighbourhood of them built on the Bow River: 830 ft2, very cool flat roofs. So many of these non-competition plans are scattered along the edges of what is now inner city - the edges of what was a small CPR- based city before the oil booms.
what a great idea! Wish we could pull this off in the States. Unfortunately, the right would be all over that "communist houses" claim