BUILDING VIEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 49, 27 February 1945, Page 4

BUILDING VIEWS

NOW AND POST-WAR PERIOD P.A. ' GISBORNE, This Day, Disagreement with the viewpoint that housing is the only means of em*, ployment for builders for some time! to come, need for fewer industrial committees, and a warning against q danger of those connected with industry falling into a rut and believing that standardisation" to produce cheap houses is in the best interests of the community, were expressed by Mr, Townshend in his presidential address at the opening of the Builders an 3 Contractors Federation conference to-i day.

Mr. Townshend pointed .out that housing construction was still serious* ly retarded by lack of materials and man-power and suggested that other avenues in which the building indus-t try should be engaged, besides hous-t ing, were in the erection of buildings, and factories. The committees set up m the industry were not conducive to imaginative ideas or planning by the individual, and he doubted whethes they were in the interests of industry or the State.

Discussing standardisation in house building, he said it should not be the industry's sole desire to follow the line of least resistance, to make every-, thing easy for the builder, as that would result in a diminution of self-, reliance. People ought not to suffeE restrictions and uniformity of supplies once an orderly change-over to a peacetime footing had been achieved^