THE TIN-SHED HABIT

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 27, 1 February 1924, Page 6

THE TIN-SHED HABIT

The' Tongariro National Park Board will meet next week, and will probably select a site for the hostel which it is proposed shall be erected in the Park. This should not be a difficult task if undertaken by members of the Board well acquainted with the natural features of the Park, and piepared to hold the balance fairly between the desires of athletic visitors who want a hostel convenient for sports purposes and those less active visitors whosex chief need is easy access. Both sections deserve consideration, but neither should be.allowed to override the wishes of the other. When the site is selected, however, the Board will be called upon to plan the hostel building. In doing so we hope that an effort will be made to break down the tin-shed habit, the growth of many years in our New Zealand tourist resorts. Wherever the tourist may go in New Zealand he will find huts built of corrugated iron, unsightly and uncomfortable, hot in summer and cold in winter. Sometimes there is one set of huts which has fallen to pieces and another set which is showing signs of disrepair. The explanation, or excuse, for "-this style of building is that the material has had to be carried by pack-horse or porter, and that iron is most easily transported. Yet round the iron huts there is usually an ample supply of stone suitable for rough concrete work. Even where transport difficulties present themselves the carriage of cement would not be much more expensive than the carriage of iron, and the extra cost would be amply repaid in the permanence of the building, its greater comfort, and its better

appearance. In other parts of the world, in mountains where stones and boulders abound, the people use them for building. Why should we not do so here? Then we should have huts which would be in keeping with the surr.oimdings, and would not involve constant expense for repairs and renewals.