MASS PRODUCTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23004, 6 October 1936, Page 7

MASS PRODUCTION

GOVERNMENT'S HOUSING SCHEME A VARIETY OF DESIGNS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Oct. 5 The progress which has been made in the preliminary organisation for the Government's housing scheme was referred to in an interview today by Mr J. A. Lee, Parliamentary Under-secretary in charge of the Ministry of Housing, when commenting on the pictorial design of the proposed houses which he has made available for publication. "The design which has been prepared," said Mr Lee, " gives a fair average impression of how the housing areas will appear after development under the Government's scheme. It shows houses constructed of different materials and varying in appearance, yet a large amount of the construction work in each house is standardised and this will have a considerable effect on the costs." Mr Lee said allowance would be made for the necessity of varying the designs in different districts. For instance the level sections which were available for the Wellington scheme at Hutt would require a different type of house from the sloping sections at Orakei. Such local factors as wind velocity would also be taken into consideration, and the houses to be built at Auckland would probably be designed so that full advantage could be taken of the climatic conditions. The production of materials would be standardised as far as possible, Mr Lee continued, and as hundreds of houses would probably be built at a time the Government would be in a position to place large orders for certain classes of building materials which would have the effect of reducing costs. For instance, there were indications already that the price of bricks could be materially reduced for large orders. In this respect Mr Lee mentioned that bricks which cost about £6 per 1000 were obtainable in England at about 25s or 27s 6d per 1000. Mass production methods would probably bring down the New Zealand price to a marked extent. "We hope to be able to call tenders for some of the individual schemes in the near future," Mr Lee added. "Until then and until we can get, a definite idea of how the actual building operations are progressing no announcement concerning the costs or the probable rentals is likely to be made."