MASS PRODUCTION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 27, 20 September 1946, Page 2

MASS PRODUCTION

PREFABRICATED HOUSES IN PLASTIC EFFORTS IN GERMANY German designers and industrialists, planning their first renewed bid in the world’s markets, are hoping to export prefabricated houses made of plastics. They have already made prototypes, which will be exhibited in Berlin. They have produced individual designs for England, America, Russia and France. And this is what Edwin Tatlow, English Special Correspondent in Berlin, writes about them: I saw some of the models. They are first class in ingenuity and execution. They can be put up in a matter of hours by unskilled labourers. Each section is complete with plastic windows and electric wiring and heating pipes, which simply need jointing as one section is fitted to another. The houses will be remarkably light and cheap. Herr Bottcher, principal architect concerned, told me that one type, consisting of a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom would weigh about the same as‘three average people. Prototypes being built at Siemenstadt are costing £325, but on mass production the price would probably come down to £llO.

The designs abound in new ideas The sections have “creases” to take up expansion or contraction caused by varying weather. The Germans’ idea is to export the houses on a mass production scale to pay for reparations and to help rebuild their own shattered internal economy.