Homeworld ’81: 40 years on
I’ve had a great trip down memory lane recently thinking about Homeworld ‘81
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a British film maker who was making a film to mark the 40th anniversary of this innovatove housing exhibition. I jumped at the chance – mostly because Homeworld ’81 was somehting I had been discussing with architectural colleagues in relation to the current affordable housing crisis in New Zealand.
Watching ‘Homeworld ’81: The Legacy and Relevance‘ has further convinced me that it wold be great to have a more contemporary version in New Zealand. The film is 44 minutes long, so if you don’t have that much time, allow me to share my memories with you. (Or if you want to watch the section devoted to New Zealand it’s at 14min).
I was invited by the NZ High Commission to build a demonstration house at an international exhibition in Milton Keynes in North Buckinghamshire.
The last of the post war New Towns, Milton Keynes, a city the size of Wellington, decided to hold the exhibition under the slogan: ‘It’s what’s happening to houses’. It ran from 2- 31 May 1981 and attracted 150,000 visitors.
The brochure stated: ‘Homeworld brings together the best and latest idea for houses together for the first time in exhibition village of full scale homes.’ No planning or Building Consents were required as the organisers didn’t want regulations to stifle innovation.
Their idea was to promote diverse private home ownership as opposed to the depressing rows of public housing prevalent in previous post war New Towns.
There were over 35 houses from a variety of countries: Britain, Canada, Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand.The location, at Bradwell Common was a short walk to the city centre.
Admission was £2 per adult and 50p for children.
We bravely decided to do a wooden house. At three stories, it was the highest in the exhibition and attracted a huge numbers of visitors. We wanted to show the British that timber could be an attractive, inexpensive, safe and durable with which to build houses.
Our design had open plan living/dining/kitchen and a guest bedroom on the ground floor, leading a garden full of NZ plants (courtesy of our High Commission). Two levels of bedrooms were stacked over the ground floor.
A cheeky balcony was attached to the topmost bedroom. The Minister of Housing stood there and said he could see the Milton Keynes railway Station from there. His nod to public transport?
Homeworld ’81 showcased lots of ‘new’ things in building – heard of double glazing?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could have an event that allowed different designers and developers to show different ways of respnding to the current housing crisis. I would love to show our range of Shaped Architecture homes that are architecturally interesting but designed for the more budget conscious.
I’m not alone in think an expo here would be timely. A couple of weeks ago I received a surprise email from David Crewe, the instigator of Homeworld ’81 telling me he has moved to New Zealand. “What about an Expo in New Zealand?” he said.
Perhaps almost as big a surprise was another email from project director John Muncaster showing how much hair I had 40 years ago.
