Soon after arriving in New Zealand I started noticing these clusters of adorable houses on the hillsides around town. I was attracted to them, because they were well built, well sited and well designed. They were of uniform size, used similar materials and windows; they weren’t all the same, but of a family.

It appeared to be housing built by the government. I would come to learn they call it “State Housing” here in New Zealand. For years I have felt that two groups get architect-designed housing: the wealthy and the poor. Now I might revise it to say a period of time when governments were building low-income housing, for New Zealand that period was 1940 to the 1960’s.

My hunch was confirmed by this quote from Branz Renovate 1940-1960s, pg. 8.

• “In 1936, New Zealand elected its first Labour government. In an attempt to address the critical housing problem, one of the new government’s first moves was to establish a Department of Housing Construction, headed by John A Lee . The aim of the Department was to provide good quality workers’ housing built to a high standard, rather than to minimum standards ’at least up to the standard of, and preferably better than, the houses inhabited by ordinary, typical citizens’.

• A competition was held to design suitable housing. Among John A Lee’s ideas was that houses should be built as individual units (rather than terrace-style housing) on their own plot of land and should not all look the same, in order to avoid the appearance of mass-produced government housing (Figure 1.1). The brief required that, in every group of 10 houses, each house was to have a different floor plan, and every house in a street was to have a different elevation and use different materials. Standard components such as joinery and fittings would be used in all houses to keep building costs low.

• The competition produced designs from around the country. All the houses were generally rectangular in plan and contained between two and five bedrooms. Roofs were generally simple hips or gables and tended to be moderately steeply pitched. Elevations were plain without decoration. Windows were small multi-paned units, and doors were set back in shallow, recessed porches.”

Later they surmise on pg. 9

• “The aim of the early state housing programme of providing quality housing was generally successful, and in the 21st century, early state houses are still regarded as solidly constructed homes with good potential for renovation.”

I agree.

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