There will be the following points of research:

         A       Examination of the minimum standard: the most primitive form a house an have and be suitable for healthy living for a short period.

         B       examination of several houses showing different stages of development from a primitive to a complete house.

         C       examination of the relationship between individual and collective living.

                   Examination of what services can be collective during the first period and for what size groups of buildings and families. Transformation of this system of collective services step by step into a system of services for smaller groups and individuals.

         D     examination of the same problems in (c) in connection with town planning. In the first period there will be a simple system of roads and streets; to be developed later into a system more suitable for individual living.

         E      questions dealing with the shortage of materials in post-war periods; for example, the examination of possibilities of installing temporary heating systems in such a way that they need not be destroyed later.

         All these problems will be examined with standardization and industrial production as the chief consideration.

         Standardisation here does not mean a formal one with all houses built alike. Standardization will be used mainly as a method of producing a flexible system by which the single house can be made adjustable for families of different sizes, various topographical locations, different exposures, views and so on.

         This means that practically every house will be different from the next in spite of the fact that there will be a strict standardization of elements and building cells.

         Special attention will be given in this section to a system of standardization that permits flexibility. Sixteen units are to be built in this section in each of six types, (a) to (f). One unit to each type is to be used for special laboratory purposes (six units). The types (a), (b), (c),(d),(e) and (f) are all of various sizes with variations from 45 square metres of net area to 80 square metres. The size of each of these types will depend on the size and character of the different families.

         Different stages of development demonstrating the flexibility of standardization will be carried out. A temporary field laboratory for the test of technical details will be established in connection with this section (one unit). Nine units will be built for collective services.

Section three: the one-family house; a combination of industrially made units assembled by unskilled workers

The third section will cover the same purposes as section two, but the difference is to be in the method of assembling. Although 32 units will be built, with the same variations in size and location as in section two. Three units are to be built for collective services.

The local staff, including a chairman responsible to the collaborating American university or technical institute, is to have headquarters at Helsinki as well as on the building field itself. A part of the staff is to be comprised of American graduate architects and graduate engineers maintained by American travelling scholarships. The chairman of this committee is to be responsible for the academic assignment of work to the student members of his staff.

         The research field will be divided into sections which when completed will constitute a communal unit. The research work will be carried on independently in each section, but with a view always to the coordination of the sections.

Section one: the embryo human shelter

The work in this section will deal mainly with experiments in minimum dwellings as temporary shelters for families of various sizes and for single individuals. The location, planning and construction are to be of such character that buildings suitable for a permanent mode of living may be developed without demolition of the basic structures or serious changes in the general plan.

         Part of the work will be related to the problem of grouping primitive shelters so that several of them may form a complete family unit. Another part of the work will be related to the problem of transportable elementary shelters. Special attention will be given to technical problems such as the study for suitable foundations to make buildings independent of seasonal conditions, climatic conditions, and the like.

         This section will contain the following buildings:

         12 units(1). The problem of absolute minimum shelter to be examined through one room unit-cells.

8         units(2). Combination of different cells into a primitive 2, 3 and 4 room shelter.

1                         units (3). Development of (1) and (2) by additional building into more complete shelters. Each finished unit will be at a different stage of development.

6         units (4). Group buildings of embryo shelters with a semi-collective living room which later can be used as a private living room of one family. Each finished unit will be at a different stage of development.

4         units (5). Transportable buildings of type (1) and (2).

Two-thirds of the above buildings will be prefabricated, one-sixth will be assembled by unskilled workers from factory made standard units and another sixth will be built by local craftsmen.

Section two: the one-family house; a product of prefabrication and industry

In this section the main problem of building, period by period, will be examined. All buildings will have fixed sized and they will meet different levels of living standards.

work of the institute will be done in the field, in different countries under conditions differing as widely as possible in order that a variety of result may be obtained for comparison. The complete research building groups will still be kept under observation by the institute for a certain time after the termination of the building period.

         These research groups will be parts of housing areas, or building projects aimed first at satisfying humanitarian needs and only secondarily at commercial objectives, should they exist.

         To make the plan financially feasible the institute will be authorized to enter into agreements with foundations and with local authorities.

         The institute will also serve as a teaching tool in arranging practical research work in the field for graduate scholars and in the undergraduate preparation of students for this activity.

Introduction to the programme

To illustrate the manner in which this plan might be put in to practice, we will take Finland today as a typical research field. We take Finland merely for the sake of a concrete example and also because it happens to be the terrain with which the writer is personally most familiar. From a practical point of view, Finland offers special opportunities for research work of this character: rich topographical variations; a building industry developed in keeping with other productive activities of the country; extremely low costs for all kinds of building in relation to existent conditions in other countries and a comparatively high standard of living. However, it must be understood that such an approach is not intended to limit the field of such work to any particular country.

         On this basis we may assume that the initial research field is to be established in Finland in a district designate by that country’s government. It should be located north of the capital, Helsinki. It should be conveniently accessible to the capital itself, to the industrial areas close to the capital, as well as to certain smaller industrial towns. At the same time it must have ready communication with one of the larger agricultural areas. The location is very important because the houses to be constructed in this research field are afterwards to be used for ordinary dwellings. Therefore good connections with several industrial centres and agricultural areas are vitally necessary.

         The research field, during the work and all activity in connection with it, is to be under the joint supervision of an American university or technical institute and a local committee, including representatives of the supervising research Institute and the State of Finland. All technical advisers in the local committee are to be approved by the supervising American university or technical institute.

         The area for the research field is to be provided by the Finnish State for this purpose without any expense to the collaborating American university or technical institute. Highways and principal streets and electrical power will be arranged by the local authorities. The area for research construction will cover at least 200 acres, excluding highways.

The need of a testing ground

An experimental housing group must be built to embrace a number of houses of different types as well as all essential constructions needed for serving a community as a collective-living basis. This “experimental group” must be large enough to include all the buildings necessary for a careful study of the essential problems of a normal community.

         At the end of the first building period we should have a communal unit embracing both primitive shelters and a higher development of the same. After the first “building period” this laboratory group will be turned over as dwellings for families and individuals to serve as a living centre for refugees. In this way the laboratory field then begins to fulfill its task directly to humanity.

         During the second phase or “dwelling period” the field will be kept under scientific observation while further developments will be watched. And the results of observation of this period, like those of the “building period”, will be published and distributed for academic and scientific use.

The organization

If really good result are to be obtained this research work must be the product of a world-wide organization working in many different countries, under many different conditions, but with its centre in an individualized and scientifically progressive country, for example, the United States.

         Such an organization must be politically independent and must have no connection with local commercial building enterprises. It must be free to cooperate with any local building activities of a suitable character in a given location. The main purpose of such an organization is to be able to give real aid in an emergency completely independent of local conditions, just as the Red Cross aims at doing. But at the same time this organization must have a creative end. Its aim is not merely to alleviate temporary sufferings, but beyond that to work out of the opportunity provided it by the present crisis, new forms for normal peacetime housing – forms that will have a more profoundly humane and scientific justification.

         To achieve the proper results the organization and its subsequent research work must be directed, or at any rate supervised, by an American university or technical institute where technical and scientific faculties are available and can collaborate. This is important because the planning, supervision and observation of the experimental and research work in the field and the combination and analysis cannot be satisfactorily effected without the aid of various scientific and technical groups or experts.

         A centre for the collection of the date obtained must be located in this same university or technical institute in the form of an “Institute for Architectural Research”. The parent institute will have to deal only with technical and humanitarian issues – not with financial problems.

         The institute will be primarily a scientific centre where all results obtained through the fieldwork are collected, analysed and published. The actual research

Each of these stages of development can and should constitute a development of earlier forms rather than a replacement of them. The desirable plan of construction should permit a biological growth of the social unit without requiring the usual wave after wave of demolition and rebuilding.

 The social group

Such a system will not confine itself merely to construction or to the problem of the individual house. It is a question that covers the whole field of human society from the planning of the community with its problems of traffic, sewage, and the like, down to new forms of houses – even to patterns of living. It covers the question of harmonious transition from the first primitive solutions of utility and shelter problems on a collective basis, to a higher development of them for smaller units within the social group. In this way the problem also embraces questions of the protection of the individual’s privacy and that of small social units against the pressure of lager groups in collective living.

Scheme of an experimental town, combined with a commercial subdivision. This map shows in a schematic way all the necessary elements of a complete town. When built, the various units will have to follow natural local conditions and actual topography. The map shows the following units: a is the experimental part of the town consisting of one-family houses, row houses and apartment houses. Units d(one-family houses), e(small apartment houses) and f (row houses) show additional buildings which will be erected after the models developed in the experimental section as a usual real estate operation or with governmental subsidy, b is the community centre, and c school and athletic field.