QUESTIONS ...and ANSWERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 921, 5 April 1957, Page 4

QUESTIONS

...and ANSWERS

[_AST week we looked at the problem of Urban Sprawl and saw how unchecked housing development can threaten our cities, towns and land. This week besidés illustrating two of the ideas for planned development, taken from the exhibition arranged by the Architectural Centre of Wellington, we asked a Town Planner a little about planning, and collected a number of questions arising from the first article and the exhibition and put them to the appropriate experts. _ Although Town Planning is a relatively new idea in New Zealand, in other parts of the world planners have existed since the earliest days-the very first town planner known by his own mame lived in ancient Greece. Many of the mediaeval towns so much admired today are the result of good planning,

and in England Edward I was one of the great Royal town planners, once summoning fifty town planners "who knew best how to devise, order and array a new town to the utmost profit of the King and of merchants" to a conference. Queen Elizabeth tried to stop London spreading beyond the walls by a Royal Proclamation-and not surprisingly failed to do so. From those days onwards many of the visions of planners have been left behind to give continual pleasure-buildings by Sir Christopher Wren, by the Woods, father and son, who left the Circus and Crescent in Bath; Haussman’s re-design-ing of Paris, Nash’s Regent Street; and today, Corbusier, Gropius and Abercrombie amongst others, continue the tradition. Despite this honourable lineage town planners are often suspect and the bad effects of their work are often pointed out-the unhappy state of Canberra, for instance, which has never fully lived up to its plan, the relentless effect the gridplanners had in New York, and the problems of the new satellite towns of London. When The Listener called to see the Town Planner it was decided to ask him if he could enlarge on a remark he made when discussing Urban Sprawl last week. "The solution of this problem," he had said, meaning Urban

Sprawl with all its complications, "is the key to making New Zealand interesting." What exactly did he mean by interesting? Did it mean more Espresso coffee bars, more skating rinks, more recreational facilities of all kinds: or perhaps a more interesting architecture -with great blocks of flats interspersed with parks and gardens in the manner of Corbusier? His answer was quite different. "I can explain it this way," he told us. "Many people say to a planner, ‘What a pity you can’t start all over again with a clean slate-that you have to contend with all the limitations imposed on you by existing buildings, and all the difficulties of awkward sites. How much easier it would be if you could start afresh!’ When people say this to me I have to disagree. For the truth is that the planner, like many artists, rejoices in these limitations that are imposed on him. He doesn’t want a completely free hand, to be able to do exactly as he likes, to have as much space as he wants. "What really bring out the best in him, and in most human beings, are the difficulties, and in the realm of town planning the difficulties solved by the planner are the very things that make a town interesting and give it character.

"You'll find that the character of a town depends directly on the number of difficulties the planner had to face. After he has found solutions to them the place can then become interesting and exciting. Unfortunately, we’re such a lethargic, easy-going type of nation that we've ceased to regard difficulties as interesting-the truth, however, is quite the contrary. "If we look at all the planning that must be done in New Zealand, and if we try to plan on the basis of realityof what is really there-then something much more interesting is going to come out of it. If we have all the facts about a town or city-how its citizens really live and use it-and we build our plans on these facts then, to say the least, our cities will be more truthful. What we’re doing now is completely untruthful, it is based on a myth, on a number of myths, in fact. "Take the simple example of a shopping centre. If we continue to use our shopping centres, at as present, for transport, and we use the properties alongside for shops and offices, then we are bound to have an _ unsatisfactory shopping centre. If we accept the public transport vehicle, and accept the fact that roaring traffic through inadequate traffic streets is wrong, then we'll get down to tintacks and evolve something better. It has already happened overseas, and in some parts of the world there are special pedestrian streets. This becomes so much more interesting that when it’s done properly it puts the others to ‘shame. "You can go on multiplying instances like this, but in my view, and I think or all planners, in the final analysis, the form of a city must be directly related -to the problems it presents. If you meet those problems then you’re on the way to getting an interesting city." He looked out the window at the tangle of traffic outside, weaving its way through streets that hadn’t changed since the days of horse traffic. ‘""The individual looking at Wellington,’ he went on, "knows it should be a city, but it doesn’t look like a city because we’ve failed to meet the problems it raises truthfully." "Well, could you give us an example of a present day myth?" we asked. "Easily," he replied. "And here is one you'll hear in many a bar near closing time, thumped hard on the counter. It has to do with urban sprawl. Countless people believe that if we combat urban spraw] we'll be disturbing family life-that the houses in our suburbs are full of complete family units of a mother, father, and children. When we come to look at it, however, we find that, in fact, 30 to 40 per cent of households consist only of one or two people. Our housing development is based on the assumption that all, or practically all of our households consist of a full quota of members-and this just isn’t true. If we cater for the needs of these people living in ones and twos in whole houses by providing flats and units we won’t be upsetting the family man at all. "Throughout all our planning the thing we most need-and the thing we. most need as a people-is ingenuity. An ingenuity which can replace our

mediocrity. In the past we have been adventurers, a lot of the time out of our own land in wars overseas, But today we're living on the threshold of a very exciting time, and our great need is to set off on another adventure, this time the adventure of the mind." This theme was emphasised later when Dr W. B. Sutch, who was chairman of the Gallery Committee which arranged the exhibition, "Homes Without Sprawl," said: "By our present methods of housing and land development, wasteful as it is, we’re depriving ourselves of the full benefits of such things as opera, art, ballet, cafes, even pageantry-all those things one should be able to enjoy at leisure in the city. This list is illustrative and not necessarily the kind of community relaxation and development that would occur in New Zealand, but here we don’t give community life of any kind much opportunity to occur. Economically, we could build many more facilities if we weren't building so many sewers. So far our development has been suburban and not urban, which means that we don’t get the spiritual and cultural advantages that can come from a community of hundreds of thousands of people. We’re not yet creating the right conditions to satisfy our own inner needs, and we suffer from a kind of starvation of the spirit." Besides looking at some of the ideas behind planned living and planned town development we had promised this week to give some of the reactions of the citizen-consumer to them. These have been drawn from _ conversations about the "Homes Without Sprawl" Exhibition, and from last week's articles, and the questions have been put to the experts concerned. Q: In New York 15 million man-hours a week are spent in travelling time. Is that time really Jost? Is it lost time to read the paper in the train instead of the office, or to read a good book, or even sit and think? Admittedly, straphanging is lost time, but how many people must straphang? N.Z. LISTENER, APRIL 5, 1957.

A: (By John Watson, who based a study of "Travelling Time to Work" on figures derived from the New Zealand census of 1945), There’s no easy answer to this question. New Zealand is the only country that has tried to look at this nationally, and included it in the census, I don’t think you can read or think very well while travelling, and the medical implications are not fully studied yet-the effect nervous strain and fatigue imposed by rush hours has on industrial efficiency and _ general health, for instance. The Director of Research of the New York City Planning Committee, Henry Cohen, wrote in 1951, that "It has been estimated that in transit alone New Yorkers spend 500,000 to 600,000 man-days of employable time each day. The estimated costs of the waste and loss due to traffic congestion are fantastic, and the strain on the individual is virtually inestimable. In New Zealand one aspect of such travel does concern me, and this is the way our dormitory suburbs tend to sep-. arate home and work. This often creates divided loyalties in the father and often leads to the mother taking over the suburban social organisation. Children-- boys in particular-are less likely to know what their father is doing all day, than, say, the son of a farmer. This isn’t altogether desirable, and can create problems in the schools, The fathers, on the other hand, are often apathetic about suburban organisations, especially if their interests are mainly vocational, as so many are. I think you can do a lot about these human problems, and if you do then I don’t necessarily believe that urban sprawl is a bad thing. Q: The possession of a quarter-acre section is a tangible symbol of civic pride, it is also a symbol of belonging, of being a part of the area you choose to live in. If our housing methods are radically changed, what can we substitute for the quarter-acre section? A: Community spirit, for instance. We would have to avoid the mistakes we have made with many of our housing

areas and allow, amongst other things, for greater recreational facilities. If we are thinking of large blocks of flats, then considerations other than economic ones will have to be the dominant motives for developing them. Economic considerations will not be conducive to better human relationships unless you plan for them. The drawings reproduced on _ these pages-two of those on display at the "Homes Without Sprawl’ Exhibition, provoked other questions, answered by an architect as follows: Q: Is it possible to soundproof flats effectively? A: Sounds in dwellings are of two kinds, airborne noises such as talking, and impact noises, Airborne noises are substantially less in flats than in ¢onventional dwellings, and impact noises are not at all difficult to prevent-you will not get serious noise that way. Sound insulation, while not perfect, is better in flats than in any other conventional dwelling. Q: In some of the blocks advocated in this scheme you would have your neighbours breathing down your neckcould you isolate yourself from what’s going on next door? A: There is complete privacy inside the dwellings, and outside this is gained by definite objects such as walls, appropriately placed trellises, trees and greenThese provide a visual and sound barrier. We have planned in several different ways to provide for privacy. Q: How could plans such as this be implemented? A: There’s nothing to stop this type of thing being built by the Government, who are in the best position to show the way. It could also be built by the speculative builder, who could make it a spec. development similar to the buy-your-own flat idea, except that here you wou:d buy your own house. It is necessary, however, for any such development to take place according to a preconceived plan. To sum up, it could occur through all the conventional channels, but it does require a lead.

Q: Does New Zealand’s earthquake record account for the prejudice against flats? A: No, it doesn’t make any important difference at all--I haven’t heard earthquakes raised as an argument at all. Q: "The State house at its time was remarkably enlightened" --May not these projected flats or terraces in a few years look as pathetic and depressing as same of today’s State housing settlements? A:-No, I don’t think so. The fundamental error of the State housing was understood at the time by a great man people-this being the universal Fein 2 ling they represented. What we have in mind represents an infinite varietythey can be designed for streets, districts and towns, they also take account of different slopes of the ground, and the availability of local materials. Q: I suspect that flats_are simply one price we pay for the dubious benefits of a technological civilisation, A: Flats as such are a_ traditional European way of living, and have nothing to do with the technological. age whatever. Statistics show that 30 to 40 per cent of our houses contain only one or two people, and for many of these flats is the best way of living. Finally, we had one last question for the Town Planner: Has New Zealand a national survey or plan of any kind? "Yes, a survey is at present being prepared by the Town Planning Department, It is a long job and a slow one. It will give detailed information on the rocks, vegetation, climate of a particular area, and will show what man has done to the land, A great deal of the information is coming from various Government departments, and is being brought together by trained staff." "