Higher density living — a question of the future

Press, 7 June 1978, Page 24

Higher density living — a question of the future

High density housing calls to mind overseas examples of tall, imposing filing-cabinet buildings swallowing and confining whole families. Convenient in amenities, but souldestroying in their ant heap propensities. Buildings expressing the rarity of available land and a burgeoning population to be accommodated somewhere economically. On the other hand, a single house on its own section with mature trees, a slow meandering river flowing past or a park at the end of the section, is probably the ideal place for family living as well as being" beautifully illustratable in the glossy magazines.

The impetus towards higher density housing is not solely because of

economics. Scarce, expensive land and a demand for accommodation certainly offer a strong inducement to increase density. However, the desire to be close to the centre of commerce and entertainment — where the action is — brings many to want higher density inner city living by preference. The question is not whether high density housing or low density housing is the best answer to our accommodation needs. Every community needs a variety of people; opportunities for meeting each other; opportunities for people to be together or alone. It needs places where many different activities can take place Big concentrations of people make far greater possibilities than when people are spread thinly. A city spread to the extent of Christchurch in Great Britain would have the population of a Birmingham, with consequent greater cultural potential. , , The typical New Zealand suburban layout with houses lining a busy road (gapped and shaped uniformly but striving to be different) also has less community potential than

where the same houses are grouned together around a small cul-de-sac. Areas of higher density housing (not necessarily high-rise) in pockets through a city, where sensitively designed, can enhance a community and at the same time foster healthier commercial and entertainment centres because of the increased numbers of people.

One of the reasons higher densities have not been more common in New Zealand is that as a nation of “do it vourselfers” the single family home is able to be “designed” and built without the trauma of briefing an architect, or the involvement of big commercial enterprise. It is questionable whether we can continue the “luxury” of the poorly designed majority of single family houses and ownership flats. Planned pockets of higher density housing, and more community-oriented low density housing groups could turn the disadvant-

age of economic necessity into the advantage of greater variety of living possibilities, but only if well designed with that end in view. This is the task for which the architect receives his training.