This Day in History (1974): Singles' housing, windmill agreement

From the Aug. 14, 1974, edition of The Arabian Sun

Along 20th Street in Dhahran and in the northwest section of Ras Tanura, a new kind of housing complex is being developed for Aramco bachelors and bachelorettes.

Called a windmill complex, this new housing arrangement maximizes the living space of the familiar AH44 efficiency units by adding a private outdoor patio area for each tenant, and a storage shed.

To create the patio area, four AH44 units are placed together rather in the design of windmill sails (and thus the name), a layout that automatically creates two walls for each of the four patios.

The remaining two walls are composed of Cloustra block. Each of the four patios is then fully tiled, making it into a private living area that adds 260 square feet of living space to the AH44 unit.

In effect, the new patio provided by the windmill pattern is the largest single room of the AH44 unit, although the interior rooms too area of a generous size. The living room, for example, measures 12 feet by 15 feet and the kitchen 6 feet 9 inches by 10 feet six inches, the bedroom 10 feet by 8 feet nine inches, and the bath 8 feet 9 inches by 5 feet 6 inches.

The windmill pattern is a relatively new concept, having been introduced in Ras Tanura only last April, but its obvious advantages over traditional back-to-back housing are already evident, and those AH44 units have been ordered for the Aramco communities will be arranged in this pattern.

Now, 150 AH44 units are scheduled for placement in Dhahran and 18 for Abqaiq, with 60 already in place and ready for occupancy in Ras Tanura. An additional 148 AH44 units are on order for the seaside community.

At present, the AH44 units are manufactured exclusively in Kuwait by the Kharafi Company, then sent down to the Aramco communities by motor truck. A new Kharafi factory is, however, expected to be completed on the al-Khobar-Dammam road in September, which will lessen shipping time and speed up production.

Caption for top photo: New windmill complexes are taking form along 20th Street in Dhahran, where pre-fabricated AH44 units are now being set into position. In Ras Tanura, sixty units are already installed in the windmill pattern.

Also on this date

2021 — A massive earthquake strikes southwestern Haiti, killing at least 2,248 people, sparking a humanitarian crisis

2015 — The U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, re-opens after 54 years of being closed when U.S.-Cuba relations were broken off

2003 — A widescale power blackout affects the northeast U.S. and Canada

1994 — Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as "Carlos the Jackal," is arrested

1980 — Lech Walesa leads strikes at the Gdansk, Poland, shipyards

1971 — Bahrain declares independence from Britain

1966 — American model and actress Halle Berry is born in Cleveland, Ohio

1959 — Founding and first official meeting of the American Football League

1947 — Pakistan gains independence from the British Empire

1935 — Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, creating a government pension system for the retired

1920 — The 1920 Summer Olympics, having started four months earlier, officially open in Antwerp, Belgium, with the newly adopted Olympic flag and the Olympic oath being raised and taken at the Opening Ceremony for the first time in Olympic history

1893 — France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration

1848 — Oregon Territory is organized by an act of Congress

1814 — A cease-fire agreement, called the Convention of Moss, ends the Swedish-Norwegian War

1720 — The Spanish military Villasur expedition is defeated by Pawnee and Otoe warriors near present-day Columbus, Nebraska

1040 — King Duncan I is killed in battle against his first cousin Macbeth. The latter succeeds him as King of Scotland.