Ceilings should be low to gain the effect of homelikeness; when over 8 feet 6 inches the room is apt to appear chilly and stiff. Casement windows 
planned in rows are always attractive; this bay is seen from the outside in the lower picture on page twenty-four 
The Way the Architect Works 
AN EXPOSITION OF THE ESSENTIAL CONSIDERATIONS OF HOUSE PLANNING THAT EN¬ 
ABLES THE PROSPECTIVE HOUSE BUILDER TO CLARIFY HIS IDEAS—THE DETAILS THAT 
GO FOR COMFORT AND CONVENIENCE, AND ADD TO THE APPEARANCE OF THE HOUSE 
T HERE is in the lay mind 
an ignorance of how an 
architect approaches the prob¬ 
lem of building a house and 
too often a misunderstanding 
of what he is trying to do. 
There is an idea altogether 
too common that the business 
of an architect is to hang trim¬ 
ming on the outside of the 
building and to torture the in¬ 
side into cozy corners, that he 
is a luxury, a sort of house 
milliner, a kind of parasite 
who expends his efforts in 
making a great number of 
superfluous drawings. It is 
the object of this paper to try 
to show the architect’s true 
function, his real relation to 
house building, and the meth- 
by Allen W. Jackson 
Photographs by the Author, Thos. Ellison and Others 
ods which he follows to attain 
his ends. 
On an architect being in¬ 
formed that his services are 
desired, the course of pro¬ 
cedure as usual is as fol¬ 
lows : first, he wishes to visit 
the land with the owner. 
What he is after is to learn 
the location, the existing sur¬ 
roundings and what course 
the future development is like¬ 
ly to take, the points of the 
compass and the general lay 
of the land. Unless the land 
is approximately level it will 
be the part of wisdom to have 
a topographical survey, at 
least of so much as will be 
covered with the house and its 
A beamed ceiling strongly emphasizes the horizontal effect of a room accessories. The rougher the 
( 23 ) 
