Porchets

An architecture trade journal from the ’20s has some dubious innovations for a brief fashion. Sleeping porches were a big deal in the ’20s, especially in California. Fresh air is unquestionably good for you, but sleeping outside of the building is an invitation to bugs and birds and burglars.

The better sleeping porches or sunporches were part of the structure, with lots of closable windows to avoid rain on the floor and bugs in the nose.

Here are a couple of BAD ideas.

The Porchet was sort of like a fire escape with a tent, and it was supposed to be cantilevered out from an existing wall. “Holds a ton”. No thanks. You’d have to climb through the window to get in and out.

This idea was at least stronger, but it would still require a huge amount of effort to set it up each night, and you’d inevitably bump your head when waking up.

The only good thing I see in these pics is evidence that the apartment building had a crawl space between the residence and business floors. That was a rare amenity, and it did make a difference in acoustical insulation.

And finally, evidence that dirty minds are a modern invention.

I think it was a cute spelling for Tight-Grip, but my modern dirty mind can’t switch to innocent mode to see it.