Housing Study Urged

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30631, 23 December 1964, Page 1

Housing Study Urged

A research group to investigate the kind of housing pattern which would best suit the needs of various types of people in New Zealand is advocated by Mr N. J. Sheppard, a New Zealand architect who is a member of the Research and Development Group of the British Ministry of Housing.

Mr Sheppard hopes to return eventually to New Zea-

land to work in such a group, perhaps to help form it. The group would best be organised by the Government, probably within the Ministry of Works, but a university could also carry it, Mr Sheppard said. The British group contained and town planners who worked closely together, Mr Sheppard said. The group operated by planning typical large-scale neighbourhood development or redevelopment schemes in conjunction with a local authority. First the sociologists would move in to establish the habits and pattern of life of the type of people to be housed—single persons, the elderly, slum dwellers, those with young families, and so on. On the basis of this information, an “architectural brief” was established, and the whole architectural team called in. Important features of the procedure included close liaison with the contractors and a visit by sociologists and architects a year after the completion of the development to see how it was working out in practice. Scope In N.Z.

Mr Sheppard thought - the most urgent task of a similar group in New Zealand would be to see whether many New Zealanders really wanted the low-density housing development most common at present.

“I suspect that the quarteracre concept is a social thing rather than reflecting any real need,” he said. “Very little real use is made of these quarter-acre sections. They are fantastically wasteful of land and extend communal services uneconomically. What will happen as the population continues to grow?

“New Zealanders seem to like individual home ownership, and I am fully in favour of this. The inside design of most houses seems to be reasonably satisfactory, too, for the needs of the average New Zealander. The New Zealander’s home is his castle, in fact: but need the castles be 100 ft apart? “Present development forces people out into the suburbs, yet some really love to live in the centre of the city. Provision should be made for this. “The Government is one of the worst offenders. The layout of most Government housing settlements is atrocious.

“In the suburbs, shops are still being built on the four corners of a cross-road. Yet in many countries overseas

it is an accepted thing that vehicular traffic has no place in a shopping centre, and that all the residents of a neighbourhood should be able to reach the shops without crossing a major road.” Mr Sheppard, an old boy of Christ’s College, gained a diploma of architecture from the University of Auckland. He worked with Mr Paul Pascoe in Christchurch before going overseas for experience. He spent three years in London under Sir Robert Matthew helping to design New Zealand House, and then went to Stockholm for a year on a Swedish Government scholarship to study systems of timber building. He spent three months in Israel and four months in various countries of Europe before returning to Britain to take up his present position, which he has held for more than a year. He is in New Zealand on a private visit.