Fast, cheap and durable

Non-traditional housing methods, usually understood as those that by-pass bricks, mortar and masonry and attempt to economise on both materials and labour, are associated with periods of economic difficulty throughout the twentieth century and particularly in both post-war periods. Of the many types introduced to facilitate the construction of mass housing the most successful in terms of numbers of houses built was monolithic no-fines concrete. It is also the method least likely to be analysed in architectural and construction histories. In 1921-22, a set of two patents describing this technique were applied for in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and UK. In this paper we address these patents and the introduction of no-fines to low-rise housing in the UK and Belgium, describe its technical development and review the claims made that it was a fast, cheap, and durable method of housebuilding requiring only semi-skilled labour.