N.Z. Housing “Quite Crazy”

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31564, 29 December 1967, Page 8

N.Z. Housing “ Quite Crazy”

“Housing in New Zealand is quite crazy, but a lot of it is delightful,” said Mr Randall Evans, a partner in the leading London architectural firm of Yorke Rosenberg Mardall, in Christchurch ; yesterday.

Mr Evans, who left Christchurch for England in 1936, is a twin brother of Mrs R. A. Witbrock, of Avonhead Road.

After looking at Auckland and Palmerston North, and then briefly at Christchurch yesterday, Mr Evans said he was amazed that everyone thought they should have quarter-acre sections for their houses. In his view, the business, | university, artistic and cul- ■ tural centre of the province of Canterbury should be squeezed tightly together, and not spread out in the manner

in which Christchurch had developed

“But the quality of the homes is terrific by most standards—probably higher they almost anywhere else in the world, in the terms of space and gardens,” he said. “If that is the civilisation you want, then you can't do better, but to believe that tight, high-rise flatting areas like Pimlico will produce more geniuses to the acre. This is because of the interaction of people on each other that this type of housing produces.” Right Amenities

Mr Evans said that type of housing was a world-wide development which seemed to have passed New Zealand by. “You don't have to have space to produce pleasant living conditions." he said. “You just have to have the right amenities within the city." Paradoxically, he said, highdensity housing provided more privacy than suburban

' housing. In suburbs like those round Christchurch it i was not possible to avoid i knowing a lot of people. In i urban flats, on the other hand, It was possible to have .very many acquaintances but ] to restrict the number w’ith access to one's home to very few. Mr Evans said that when New Zealand’s population reached five million he would like to see most of the growth pushed into an increased density of city centres, instead of being spread out into double the area of today’s towns. Mr Evans thinks New Zealand architects are influenced by having few chances of getting big jobs. “Monument” i “When they get the chance to do something big they are inclined to put too much into it,” he said. “You start to build a monument to yourself if you're not careful. It is a failing of all architects. “What we have learned

through consistently designing large buildings is that the most important thing is to satisfy the client's requirements, while at the same time trying to make the useful beautiful. In New Zealand, every major building is inclined to be a tour de force.” The firm of which Mr Evans is a partner is occupied mainly with the design of schools, universities, hospitals, airports and housing projects. It has designed the London Airport at Gatwick, the United States Embassy in London, the Kuwait Airport, St Thomas’s Hospital in London, and is now working on the new Warwick University. Mr Evans studied architecture at the then Canterbury College, and joined the senior partner of his present firm as soon as he reached London. His time with the firm was interrupted by the war, and he was made a partner in 1958.