Housing in New Zealand (1946), clip one: Finding shelter during a housing shortage

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If you hadn't the deposit you couldn't buy, you couldn't build, you had to rent. Rents were high and houses were short – you took what you could get. One room's no place for a baby, but it's a roof isn't it? It's a dining room, it's a kitchen, it's a nursery and a front hall and a laundry and a playroom and a living room – it's a room.

Housing in New Zealand (1946), clip two: Gordon Wilson (1940s Government Architect)

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The house plans prepared allow for much variation in design while conforming to generous standards of space and equipment. These [points to a plan] are typical state house plans: two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a sun room. This [points to another plan] has three bedrooms: the living room, the kitchen, the meal space with large windows facing into the sun.

Housing in New Zealand (1946), clip three: High and medium density living

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And here are the forms of future cities, tall white buildings rising out of the past, out of the drab of our old, unplanned cities. Here is living near the crowds, near the noise. Only some of us want this – small communities like tiny villages set down in our cities. Lawns and flowers and a community hall – some want this. And individual houses to give us independence, to give us the most sunlight and the greatest freedom – a man likes a place of his own.

Housing in New Zealand (1946), clip four: Suburban plans of the future

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Self-contained communities are being built on the outskirts of our cities. This project at Trentham is designed so that the houses will surround a park in which will be sports grounds and schools and shops and theatres. Paths will link them altogether – where the path meets the road there will be an overbridge. When the children go to school or we go shopping we won't be dodging cars and in our shopping areas we will find a series of courts free of traffic, planned to group shops and offices and recreation. Our quiet streets will be close to the city through fast transport systems, but we will live with space about us and order and room for the sun to get in.

Hutt Housing: First Family Moves to Waddington (1945), clips five and six: Moving from the city and...

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...arriving at a new home

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It is with small regret that the Paterson family are moving out from their below-road basement flat in Wellington. It is quite a good one bedroom flat, but far too small for man, wife and two small children. Having to move to a house where there are no steps is quite a common occurrence in Wellington when children arrive. This time it's a shift to a new state house. For Mrs Paterson this is the sixth shift in three years. Like many servicemen's wives she has lacked a real home, so for her it is an eventful day - almost as eventful as the day she heard that her husband really had escaped from Singapore. The lorry rolls along the streets of Waddington, a brand new suburb in Hutt City. On either side are the rows of new state houses, all built in the last nine months.

Of the thousand houses here, seven have just been finished and one of the seven is the Paterson's new home. For the first time in her life the baby has a sleeping porch of her own and Diane is going to put her dolls to sleep in their own room. To have every bit of sunshine and plenty of flat land for playing is going to make a world of difference to this small girl and the thousands just like her who will soon be living here. With all the heavy furniture inside the shift is as good as over and to call this home is a proud moment for Diane and her mother.