Standing Tall: the evolution of habitable room height limits in New Zealand building controls

Although it is often thought that the 3 February 1931 Napier earthquake led to the first New Zealand building codes, they have a far longer history. Often developed by the local town, city or borough engineer, these codes or by-laws covered a wide range of topics, not just structural safety. Two surveys of local government building bylaws undertaken to support the development of national building controls, have created digests of details from a number of these codes. The 1924 survey of 37 municipalities supported the development of the first national code for timber buildings, while the 1938 survey of 84 municipalities was used to develop NZSS 95 Model Building By-law during the 1930s and early 1940s. The digests provide an opportunity to explore the 1930s development of building by-laws by geographical and topic coverage, as well as the impact on building controls since that time.These local building bylaws often included requirements that affected the interior architecture of buildings, such as the requirement for minimum dwelling or bedroom room heights. In 1924 these minima ranged from 8 ft to 10 ft (2.4 m to 3.0 m) for either a dwelling or an attic room. However, by 1938 while the height range for dwelling rooms was unchanged for attic rooms the range was reduced by 1 foot (0.3 m) to 7 ft to 9 ft (2.1 to 2.9 m). Although the 1992 New Zealand Building Code does not specify minimum habitable room heights, the House Improvement Regulations 1947 are still in force. These initially set the habitable room height requirement to 2.1 m, increasing in 1975 to 2.4 m.The paper explores the development of minimum dwelling height requirements in New Zealand using these two surveys with analysis of Wellington and Dunedin City Councils from the 1870s to the 1930s. These requirements will be compared to UK codes, exploring both the international evolution of room height requirements and the relationship to New Zealand.

Architectural style spreads its wings: New Zealand Architecture in the 1880s

The 1880s was a period in New Zealand of economic depression. It caused "unemployment, family distress, ragged children and exploited women workers, general business collapse, a crash in the property market, a ten-year banking crisis, bankruptcies and unstable ministries." But despite this Hodgson identifies this period in New Zealand's architectural history as one when: "Architectural style ... started to spread its wings and this period contains some fine examples of building design which was definitely out of the mainstream."

St James and the Good Shepherd: windows on the landscape

Two New Zealand churches completed in the 1930s, St James' Church at Franz Josef/Waiau (James Stuart Turnbull and Percy Watts Rule, 1931) and the Church of the Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo (Richard Strachan De Renzy Harman, 1935), feature large plate glass windows behind the altar, affording expansive views of the natural landscape beyond. This represented a significant departure from prevailing ecclesiastical design ideas of the time, with the interior of the churches being intimately connected to the landscape outside, rather than the usual largely internalized atmosphere with any sense of the surroundings limited to light coming through strategically placed decorative or stained-glass windows. It is, however, a design aesthetic that has seldom been utilized in New Zealand since. This paper traverses the history and design of the two churches and their relationships with the landscapes in which they are situated, and concludes that St James' Church provides a heightened religious experience and is a more successful metaphor for the Christian journey.

"Interior view of a hut ...": Stereography and the depiction of an Interior Architecture in 1930

This paper is an exploration of a stereographic photograph taken inside a New Zealand backcountry hut. Matter-of-factly entitled, "Interior view of a hut, with mugs, a bottle, plate and cutlery on a table, looking through door to another hut, location unidentified," the photograph is attributed by the Alexander Turnbull Library to keen amateur photographer Edgar Richard Williams. The image gives little detail away in its depiction of the hut interior, except for a utilitarian table tableau that begins to suggest a nascent New Zealand interior defined by no-nonsense pragmaticism and Lea & Perrins. But, far from being a scene of Depression-era poverty and deprivation, close examination of the photographed situation and its broader context provides a glimpse into a monied amateurism that heralded an emergent leisure class. As a stereoscopic image, the photograph does more than depict a scene. By placing us within a spatial view, we become immersed in questions concerning interiority and exteriority. We are presented with two spatial contrasts: one in the subject of the image, the other in the object of the image. By taking a close reading of both contrasts, this paper is an attempt to make some architectural sense of these dualities.

Frederick Tschopp, Landscape Architect, OE in New Zealand 1929-32

Frederick Tschopp was a naturalised American of Swiss birth who had trained as a horticulturalist specialising in landscape architecture. He and his wife arrived in Auckland in September 1929 and he soon found work with some of the local bodies there. Works and Development in Wellington later employed him in designing gardens for several important government properties. This was not a permanent position however and about July 1931 he moved to Rotorua with a major contract to beautify the city, including extensive street plantings and an upgrade of the lake shore. Most of this work was well-received but there were some dissenting voices. The contract was terminated in November 1932, but with several goodwill gestures. While in Rotorua, Frederick had visited both Hamilton and Tauranga, commenting on landscape design aspects. The family (now with the addition of a son) left New Zealand for home in Los Angeles in late November 1932. Frederick had a subsequent career with the Department of Water in California and died at Laguna Hills, Orange, California in February 1980.The reasons for Tschopp's visit to New Zealand can be interpreted in two ways. Clearly the newspapers regarded him as an overseas expert with a talent for landscape design, still a fairly new concept in the country in the late 1920s. He undoubtedly stood out as an American with drive and initiative. But he was only 24 when he first arrived, and his motives may well have been to gain overseas experience (OE) to help his chances of obtaining a lucrative job on his return to America. One paper described him as being in the course of a world tour but there is no conclusive evidence for him having spent long in other countries at this time.

"that headquarters of fanaticism and disaffection": Protest and the construction of space at Parihaka in the 1880s

At the 2009 version of this symposium I presented a paper that outlined how protests at Waitangi during the 1980s were played out architecturally through the media. Despite the heavy focus on biculturalism during the 1980s, reporting of proceedings at Waitangi on February 6th each year clearly showed a trifurcation of space. Television networks and the national newspapers showed that the "landscape of nationhood" was in fact inhabited by three actors in the symbolically important rituals - the State, tame Māori, and wild Māori.This trifurcation of space also played out a hundred years earlier at Parihaka. Sue Abel's examinations of media constructions of nationhood and cultural interaction can be identified in reports on happenings at Parihaka pā through the 1880s. From the passive resistance to the Crown's persistent surveying of the land and building of roads, the frequent large hui held at Parihaka that drew Māori from around the country, through to the invasion of the pā by a government force of more than 1500 troops – there was rich material for spatial representation by the media of the time. While the channels were different (dominated by newspapers and Parliamentary reports, with no television networks), this paper shows that the message of trifurcation was as strong in the 1880s as it would be in the 1980s.

Sailing too close to the wind in 1880s Wellington

The 1880s and early 1890s have been widely recognised as a time of depression in New Zealand. While well-known architects with substantial clienteles were generally able to survive the downturn in business, others struggled to make ends meet, showed signs of extreme stress, or occasionally resorted to sharp practices. Few in-depth studies have been able to show the broad spectrum of architects working in Wellington at a particular time as, until recently, it has been extremely difficult to accumulate the necessary data. The introduction of Papers Past has considerably simplified this task. We can now find and assess almost all the architects who made the news in different ways. Although more than 30 men claimed to be Wellington architects in the 1880s, not all of them were working. Some, such as Frank Mitchell, produced relatively large numbers of plans throughout the decade; many others appear to have been less successful, and to have turned their hands to other activities, for better or worse. In this paper we select a few of the more colourful "architects" residing in Wellington in the 1880s. Our candidates range from the aforementioned Frank Mitchell, through to Christopher Walter Worger, who being bankrupted in Christchurch, moved to Wellington in 1889. Leaving no record of any building designs, he had gone to Dunedin by 1906. Another enigmatic character was James Henry Schwabe, who escaped Dunedin and a rather public humiliation for Wellington in the late 1870s. Similarly, we discuss the erratic behaviour of W.J.W. Robinson, also escaping scandal in Dunedin to practise in the capital. Charles Zahl we find making a fleeting visit in early 1887, before absconding with a large sum of investors' money en route to Rio de Janeiro or Britain. We finish with the case of Ernest Wagner, released into the community after a year's hard labour in 1880. He never practised as an architect again - preferring, or being forced, to live as a farmer in the country south of Auckland. The examples we discuss are the exception rather than the rule. Of the bankruptcies recorded at the time, few came from the upper echelons of society. Some architects who were later prominent in Wellington moved offshore to better conditions in Australia (such as Joshua Charlesworth), whereas others such as William Turnbull were protected to some extent in successful partnerships in which they had a junior role.

"And ... the dazzle continued inside ...": New Zealand interior and landscape architectures of the 1930s

The Depression began in the late 1920s, but was not simply triggered by the October 1929 crash in Wall Street. In the two years between 1928-29 and 1930-31, "export income nearly halved. ... The government ... slashed expenditure," including severe cuts to public spending in health and education. As Ann Calhoun notes:[t]he effect of the 1930s Depression on [Schools of Art] students and instructors alike was massive: salaries were reduced, the school admission age was raised, overscale salaries were limited, grants for sewing and science were withdrawn, administration grants were cut back, training colleges in Wellington and Dunedin closed and student allowances decreased, and grants to kindergartens were withdrawn.A proposal for a town-planning course by John Mawson (the Director of Town Planning)) and Cyril Knight (Head of Architecture, Auckland University College) likewise failed due to "lack of numbers and Depression cutbacks." Helen Leach also notes the impact of cuts to education more generally, writing that: "[m]others of young children who expected them to start school at four or five learned in May 1932 that the age of entry would be raised to six."

"if other arrangements can reasonably be made": the interior architecture of Children's Courts in New Zealand in the 1930s

In 1925, the Child Welfare Act was passed. The Act introduced the idea of the Children's Court as a space "separate from the premises in which another Court usually exercises jurisdiction" (s28). In 1927, an amendment to the Act provided further elaboration, clarifying that: "persons attending any sittings of a Children's Court shall not be brought into contact with persons in attendance at any other Court." To achieve this the amendment stipulated that: "for this purpose the sittings of the Children's Court shall not, except in cases where no other suitable room is available, be held in any room in which any other Court ordinarily exercises jurisdiction; nor shall a sitting of the Children's Court, if held in the same premises as any other Court, be held at a time when such other Court is sitting, if other arrangements can reasonably be made" (s18(1)). This paper investigates the locations, and interior architectures of Children's Courts in New Zealand in the 1930s. It aims to establish whether or not the interior architecture of Children's Courts, with their legislated requirement to be physically distinct from the rest of the court system, was also distinct, and in what ways children were specifically accommodated for in this interior architecture.

Parihaka-tecture

At 5.00am of November the 5th, 1881, government-sanctioned troops entered the Taranaki Pā of Parihaka, arresting key leaders, expelling occupants and destroying the buildings. The impetus for the assault was highly political. On the one hand Parihaka represented a focus for a broad fear of Māori political independence. At the same time the demand for fertile farm land by colonial settlers was not being met. Scattering the people of Parihaka was a central strategy for alleviating the former and satisfying the latter. Similarly, the destruction of the material fabric of the village – its architecture – was a purposeful action designed to erase any legitimate presence over the land. Not until the publication of Dick Scott's The Parihaka Story, in 1954, were the events of Parihaka brought to a wider Pākehā audience. Today it is largely, and correctly, understood as a particularly ugly moment in our history. However, while we may have developed a certain social self-consciousness toward the racial and political ramifications of Parihaka, not enough has been made of the extraordinary architecture that framed it. In this paper I wish to add to what we do know by reviewing period photographs of Parihaka Pā at the time of the invasion. In particular, I will be giving consideration to Miti-mai-te-arera (the house of Te Whiti), Rangi Kapuia (the house of Tohu), Nuku-tewhatewha (the communal bank) and Te Niho-o-Te-Ātiawa (the dining hall). It is my view that the colonial government were right to interpret these prominent buildings as symbolically threatening and in this paper I hope to show why they were so, but also how their presence nonetheless continued well into the twentieth century.