LV.—PAIR OF COTTAGES (PORCH) 50 LVI.—SINGLE COTTAGE (VIEW) 50 LVII.—SINGLE COTTAGE (PORCH) 50 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS. GARDEN PLAN 23 BLOCK OF THREE COTTAGES (ELEVATION) 27 BLOCK OF THREE COTTAGES (ELEVATION) 35 THE “CABINET” BATH 51 CORNES’ PATENT BATH 52 SMALL COTTAGE INGLE (ELEVATION AND PLAN) 54 THE MODEL VILLAGE: BOURNVILLE INTRODUCTION. In introducing the present work on “The Model Village and its Cottages,” it would be certainly out of place to discuss the housing problem; there is, nevertheless, an aspect of this question to which the attention of the reader should be briefly directed. The housing problem is no longer one in which the poor in the congested districts of great towns are alone concerned. A far larger section of the people is affected,—a section which includes not only the labouring class, but also the skilled artisan, and even a class of the people still more prosperous. In the light of present sanitary and hygienic knowledge it is at last recognised that the housing conditions of the past will not suffice for the future. The difficulties besetting reform are necessarily very great, yet with the movement now afoot—not only in this country, but also on the Continent and in America—it is not unreasonable to expect that before long important changes will take place. Now that politicians and economists, as well as sanitarians, are identifying themselves with the movement, it is clear that if it is to result in lasting good, the attention of the _builders_ of these new homes for the people must also be engaged; and the field that thus presents itself to the efforts of the architect is a large one. No better testimony to this need can be afforded than by the typical latter-day artisan-suburb, and it is indeed in this very suburb that the housing problem confronts us in what threatens to be in the future one of its worst aspects. Desolate row upon row of ugly and cramped villas, ever multiplying to meet the demands of a quickly increasing population, where no open spaces are reserved, where trees and other natural beauties are sacrificed to the desire to crowd upon the land as many dwellings as possible, and where gardens cannot be said to exist—such are the suburbs which threaten to engulf our cities. That they do not adequately meet the needs of the people is beyond all question.