With America’s current housing shortage, who thinks we should bring back the Architects’ Small House Service Bureau (ASHSB)? Wait…what!?! Once upon a time, there was an organization dedicated to providing quality and affordable homes to the middle-class. In 1919 a group of Minnesota architects created the ASHSB to address post-World War I housing, and two years later they had ten offices throughout the country, including here in Illinois. ASHSB designed and marketed “no frills” houses no larger than six rooms that excluded “meaningless ornamentation” and could be modified for any site. They created sixty different types of small house blueprints, with the Colonial Revival type becoming the most popular.
Neat! How novel a residential architecture non-profit seems today. Thanks for sharing.