Welldesigned housing should be available to all
Afew streets away from where I live in Jericho, Oxford, there is the most beautiful row of houses.
Former workers cottages, they are decked in charming pastel colours, and look almost like a row of sweeties lined up on a shop counter. Each cottage is pleasantly unique; different coloured, with distinctive arrangements of shrubs, cherry blossom trees, or flowers in its front garden. There’s even one with a panoply of strange toys and creatures dotting the yard — gnomes, a red plastic fire truck and countless Disney figurines hanging from the pear tree. I love the variety.
But when I returned to New
Zealand this summer, I saw the same old grey or brown housing monstrosities erupting from the earth yet again. Identical McHouses, dull and drab, like a duller version of Pleasantville.
My friend Jack Yan reminisces about his own childhood home, noting the recent absence of four bungalows across from where he grew up, in a suburb near Wellington Airport. At the time of writing, only dust and dirt are present there. Plans from the developer show that 14 identical townhouses will be erected at the site, with none of the green spaces that children of an earlier age enjoyed.
I couldn’t imagine growing up without a garden or a nearby park to run around in.
This isn’t a lament for Old New Zealand, or some mistyeyed notion of how good we had it. We are realists, and realise that we must house far more people than we did four generations ago.
I am also cognisant of the fact that many of the old beautiful villas I admire are poorly insulated and maintained. My years as a student at Otago University can attest to this fact; I’ve lived with black mould dotting the bedroom ceilings, water running down the walls and even, once, a hole in the living room wall. Clearly, there is an urgent need for new builds.
Urban intensification is a topic chewed over by city councils the country over. If people can’t afford the same sorts of houses their parents did, then smaller, cheaper ones have to be made.
But why do these new builds have to be McHouses, all with the same materials, the same look and the same colours?
When Jack spoke to a well known architect based in Wellington, a man behind one of the more creative works in the city, he was told that it’s harder to get consent for creativity. This is a clear disincentive for developers to exercise their creative impulses and breach the usual parameters. There are exceptions, of course. At least one developer Jack knows of ensures that what he builds has variety. The Wellington suburb of Aotea is somewhat indicative of architectural variety, albeit not of colour.
Some in the profession believe amateurs in the neighbourhood aren’t the best arbiters of taste. I disagree: we’re the ones who have to look at these constructions for years, if not decades, while they have already moved on to other sites. The plans for Jack’s old street do not bear an architect’s name, only a firm’s, so whoever was ultimately responsible for those McHouses need not sully their reputation should the designs date terribly in the next few years.
I also wonder how many of these designs reflect the creativity and involvement of tangata whenua. Perhaps there is some hope. In a recent article for Stuff, Colleen Hawkes argues that our architects are striving harder to create stronger and more meaningful connections between the built environment, tangata (people) and whenua (land). As architectural designer Jade Kake puts it, writing for The Spinoff: ‘‘‘Maori’ architecture, landscape and urban design cannot exist without mana whenua involvement . . . A designer is a conduit and facilitator, and equity issues aside (a separate but important issue), a Maori designer can and likely will be more sensitive to the needs and aspirations of Maori communities, and skilled in appropriate processes.”
I am reminded of the gorgeous constructions dreamed up by Keri
Hulme in her seminal work The Bone People; the seaswept, treasurefilled tower and the shellshaped communal home at the end of the novel, full of love and warmth.
During the 20th century, the 2.4m stud became trendy, and our ceilings dropped, trapping air inside our homes and forcing people to adopt mechanical ventilation and other means just to stay fresh within their own four walls — even though our forebears had it worked out naturally to begin with.
Suffocation shouldn’t be a trend, but it was imposed on us by fashion. And now we have gone one further by having these low ceilings within these McHouses where the colour palette consists of monochrome shades with lightbrown panelling as their offset.
I can’t help but feel somewhat sorry for the architects. I’m sure that upon entering the profession, the students pored over books about Gehry, Lloyd Wright, Zaha Hadid, or John Scott. Perhaps they believed that while they might not get such grand commissions, they would still be able to flex their creative muscles. Undoubtedly, there is some creativity in working out how 14 McHouses can fit into the space of four bungalows, but I think even the most ardent supporter of these new builds would find it difficult to argue this point.
Our Government has recently announced a $3.8 billion fund that councils and developers can access to help finance the roads and infrastructure needed to service new builds. Kainga Ora, the government’s housing agency, will also be given $2 billion to buy land and create more housing. I hope that at least some of these new builds will be marked by creativity, skilful design and collaboration with tangata whenua and Maori architects.
Good design, creativity and variety is not something that only the rich deserve; we all should have access to it. A budgetpriced good should still have design built in. We should allow our architects to flex their creative muscles. It follows that we need to allow a consenting process for developers that encompasses creativity.