"An analysis of New Zealands' first government sponsored housing scheme" : an analysis of the architecture of the New Zealand workers' dwelling scheme that emerged from the Workers Dwelling Act 1905, as first implemented at the Heretaunga Settlement, Petone

Abstract

This report investigates and discusses the influences on and the subsequent architectural outcome of the New Zealand Workers' Dwelling Scheme in Wellington, New Zealand's first state housing scheme that emerged from the Workers' Dwelling Act 1905. The grand forms of the buildings still existing at Petone are illustrative of the high ideals and expectations of the scheme planners, of their attempt to provide an ideal architectural solution to what they perceived as being the housing needs of the working class population. The major part of this report was compiled as a result of archival investigative research, reinforced by relevent background reading and further elaborated on through interviews and discussions with interested individuals and authorities. As discussed in this report, the plethora of architectural influences and innovations that are incorporated into the designs, together with the grand architectural language that was generally adopted by the architects, resulted in the buildings being unfamiliar and therefore difficult to accept by many prospective working class occupants of the period. This report examines the influences that formed this architecture and the wider workers' dwelling scheme, as well as the general public response to that architecture, and what effect it had on later low cost housing programmes. General conclusions are drawn from the events associated with the implementation of the workers' dwelling scheme that are applicable to architecture today.