WAR INFLUENCE ON BUILDING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 December 1940, Page 9

WAR INFLUENCE ON BUILDING

ARCHITECT’S COMMENTS RAID SHELTERS IN NEW ZEALAND SUGGESTED [United Press Association] WELLINGTON, This Day. Twelve months’ study of modern architecture in England has provided a young New Zealand architect Mr Thomas F. Haughey, B.Arch., A.N.Z.I.A. with intimate knowledge of a new form of structural designing—airblitz building. Returned now to New Zealand, Mr Haughey declares: “If present developments are any indication it seems possible that the experience of modern air warfare will result in far-reaching changes in structural design of buildings and a completely new conception of what should be the ideal town plan.” Mr Haughey, a former student of Auckland University College, left the Dominion more than 18 months ago on a travelling scholarship. He spent six months in Australia and America. He was in England when the war broke out. Almost overnight, he said, architectural development seemed to become a thing of the past. Every manner of building project in Great Britain was instantly abandoned.

WORK WORTH £200,000,000 CANCELLED

•“Why build to be bombed?” was the general attitude, he said. “One London architect alone informed me the day after war broke out that £3,000,000 worth of work in his office had been postponed indefinitely. By means of a census among its members, the Royal Institute of Architects found that over £200,000,000 worth of building work had been cancelled in the firs' week of the war. “It soon became evident, however, that new and more urge.it demands were about to be made on the skill and technical knowledge of architects throughout the whole country—for instance, that the men of the services should be provided with adequate buildings for training and living, and that civilians should be provided with evacuation camps in the country and

buildings designed and constructed in the city in such a manner as to afford reasonable protection from air attack.” With the thought that not even New Zealand could now be guaranteed immunity from invasion or air attack, Mr Haughey directed the remainder of his stay in England to the study of development in “airblitz building.” During a period of employment in supervision of the construction of R.A.F. aerodromes, hangars, stores and barracks he gained a good deal of firsthand information. Features of the construction were startling, he said, but, naturally, he was not at liberty to discuss details. AUSTRALIA PREPARES “That the Australian authorities are cognisant of the situation is illustrated b. the recent passing of laws in New South Wales that all owners of city business premises must provide airraid shelters for all employees working in their buildings,” said M Haughey. “Provision for the general public also is being made in the city of Sydney by the conversion of old underground railway tunnels into shelters.

Because war necessitates preparation for the worst, authorities in New Zealand should at least makt it compulsory for new buildings to be designed so that air-raid .belters could quickly be provided either in or beneath them. “Fortunately, the majority of city buildings recently erected in New Zea1. .d are suitably constructed in this respect, for the earthquake-resisting principles incorporated in their structural design will be invaluable if it should become necessary to strengthen them against air attack. If more of the English buildings had been built in our reinforced rigid-frame type of construction, the damage—at least in cases of blast —would have probably been much reduced.”