HOUSING THE PEOPLE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 133, 29 February 1936, Page 11

HOUSING THE PEOPLE

Architects Offer To Co-operate •

The executive of the New Zealand Institute of Architects has offered the assistance of members of the institute in any scheme for housing which the Government is promoting. A sub-com-mittee has been set up to gather information so that the institute will be able to afford valuable help to the Government if and when it fe invited to co-operate. "The late Government,” states Mr. W. Gray Young, president of the institute, “iliued a very good booklet on ‘Housing in New Zealand,’ and stated it was going to promote legislation for a housing survey for the whole of New Zealand, ‘ which was a very necessary proposal, but I consider it should have contemporaneously made surveys of existing by-laws, housing types and construction. It is really ridiculous that in a small country like New Zealand wc should be forcing manufacturers to make plumbing fittings of several different patterns for different centres of the country. The cry of the day is mass production to reduce cost, and it is going to take some time to get. the approval first of all of the various' council officers to agree to new by-laws, as we have already seen by the earthquake code, and secondly, for the manufacturers to get down to a minimum cost for the whole of New Zealand.

"The late Government also made a mistake in sending an engineer to inquire into housing abroad. An engineer has not usually, the requisite experience and knowledge of housing, nor is he In touch with the requirements of the general public. It is essentially an architect's job, as we all know from the housing schemes carried out abroad. All architects in New Zealand have to keep themselves in touch with housing developments, as the building of houses constitutes a large part of most practices. The medical profession is regarded as the protector of public health; so, in a similar degree, the architectural .profession should be essential to national housing.

"The present Government is making a great feature of planning its programme, and as it is very keenly interested in housing, I do think it is advisable that a technical committee should be set up at once to go into these matters. If the Government is going to make a success of housing the three essenlials are long-range planning, organisation and execution. "That we have a responsibility as a profession to keep ourselves abreast of the time in housing, I may mention what his Majesty King Edward VIII said at the centenary banquet of the Royal Institute of British Architects last year: ‘I want to request your great profession, which is so intimately connected with building of homes of the people, to make a special study of this great housing problem and to see what can be done not only to lessen Ihe cost of those living conditions but to raise their qualities and their amenities.”’