The Studio yearbook of decorative art (1918)

A COUNTRY COTTAGE. BY M. H. BAILLIE
SCOTT, ARCHITECT
IN normal times the houses and cottages one illustrates are usually a selec-
tion of those designed for various clients. Since it has always seemed to
me that the proper task of an architect is to make a particular house ap-
propriate, not only for its place in the world, but also a fitting setting for
its occupants, and an expression of their needs and desires, to design a cottage
for no particular place or person, which in these days is all that one can do,
seems at first sight an aimless and hopeless task. The only possibility in
such a case is to design for oneself, and to assume that in pre-war days
one had about £600 to spend on a cottage somewhere in the South of
England.
The accompanying plans and illustrations show the kind ol building I should
erect in such circumstances, holding fast all that is good in the simple old
cottage traditions of the past, and as freely accepting all their modern con-
veniences which present times afford,while consistently avoiding practically
all modern contributions to what is called the art of the home. But the mere
design of a cottage is but a small part of the work required for its realization.
It has to be built, and here normal modern methods are fatal to success. On
the choice of materials alone much will depend, as well as on the workman-
ship. This part of the business involves a continuous conflict with the
mechanical methods of the modern workman.
But at present we need concern ourselves only with design, and if we first of
all consider the ground plan of the cottage (p. 4), we may start with the re-
cessed open porch which gives a welcome shelter outside the front door.

A COUNTRY COTTAGE-VIEW FROM ROAD
3