1905 NZIA Auckland Branch president Edward Bartley .

One from the Really Old Web. I think I have just stumbled across the issue that caused New Zealand architects to unite and form an institute (now known as the NZIA ). Way back in 1905 the builders of New Zealand, having formed the NZ Federated Association of Builders, were trying to introduce a standardised building contract. This lead to an “acute” disagreement between architects and builders, causing much construction to halt.

The Wellington Association of Builders tried to clarify the dispute for the Evening Post in a letter of September 18th, 1905. Here are some extracts.

Some [contracts] were so one-sided and stringent that when those concerned went to a legal man for advice, they were told that it was a waste of time to advise builders who were mad enough to sign… so it was determined to endeavour to get one uniform set of general conditions for the colony…

The question then arose as to the best means to adopt to get the desired change. It was found that only one or two centres had Associations of Architects – and these might be called dead. In other centres (Wellington included) there was no such association, so it was deemed impossible at that stage to approach the architects, there being no cohesion between them, and each centre thinking, as they still think, that their own particular set of conditions was the best in the colony.

I well remember that the clause that provides for the payment of 1 1/2 per cent. by the successful contractor to the architect for working drawings was one of the bones of contention…

It was decided that each Builder’s Association should approach on a given date the architects in their own district, and get them to adopt them…

So the Wellington builders tried to come to an arrangement in February 1905 with the five or six Wellington architects who responded to their invitation to discussions. In July the architects rejected most of the clauses. The sticking clauses for architects of the day concerned what we now call the Defects Liability Period and Retentions – troublesome today. The builders were most unhappy that these architects were suggesting a “maintenance period” of “six months and more”. Back to the letter:

If there is one thing these conditions will do, they will make the architect more particular as to how he draws his plans, and especially more particular as to how he draws up his specifications. They want to be straightforward and plain, so that there can be only one meaning to them…

[Builders] have sought to confer with the architects; but unfortunately whilst the builders are united, and therefore strong, the architects are so many units, jealous of each other. When they join hands and send delegates with the power to act, the New Zealand builders will be only to glad to meet them and give them a good time, too.

The builders suggested a twleve month trial of the new conditions. Ten days later, an Evening Post reporter spoke to a “leading architect” and learnt that the architects were about to take action.

It is understood that while the Wellington architects are willing to have a conference, they desire that it shall be one representative of the whole of the colony on each side. The machinery for this already exists in the NZFAB, but the architects of this country are not yet similarly banded. An institute is now being formed in Wellington, however, and a meeting is to be held next Monday to draw up rules, etc… Steps are being taken to form with the least possible delay a Federation of New Zealand Architects that will be able to make definite and binding arrangements on behalf of the architects of the colony in all matters affecting their interests.”

The institute was quickly established, and all was sorted by the end of the year.

From the Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, October 31, 1905 .

02.09.10 in guilds practice

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The old Birdcage hotel in Auckland is sliding very slowly up the hill to temporarily make room for a new tunnel (which will help that city’s enormous traffic jams for a wee while). The move is pretty slow, as this time lapse shows, as the old brick hotel was not very strong in the first place. The last thing it needed was to be put on skates.

This old pile is only 760 tonnes, a mere tot compared to the biggest building moved in New Zealand. Back in 1993 the recently built Michael Fowler Hotel was shifted around a corner and across the road . All 3,500 tonnes of it, furniture included. It’s now called the Museum Hotel but is known to locals as the “Hotel de Wheels”.

I once suggested to a client that they cut their timber house in half and move one half 3 metres towards the street. Easy way out of a tricky heritage situation. A house removalist quoted the job at only $10K, but I suspect the clients thought I was bonkers. Lost that job..

01.09.10 in buildings weird-wonderful

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I have been scratching my head for way too long over this one. My laptop has been dying you see, it is getting slower and slower and nothing will speed it up. The battery is kaput as is one of the USB ports and the DVD drive. Plastic panels keep falling off the bottom, and a crack formed on the top after a few weeks. It likes to turn itself off when it gets hot, but doesn’t save anything when it dies. Its fan sounds like an old car on start up. It is less than three years old, and it has always been a turkey.

A major contributing factor to its turkey status is its dodgy operating system, Vista Business. I was foolish to buy it, and loathe it from top to bottom. I have had to turn off most of its bling to get it to work at a semi-decent pace, so it looks like Windows 98 now. Way too much time is spent looking at a spinning wheel, as I wait for Vista to do whatever it has decided to do.

So I’m over it. The operating system, and its badly designed Asus container. The thought of staring at the Windows desktop environment for another three years does not fill me with excitement.

Today I took the plunge and ordered a Macbook Pro – my first since Mac since the early ’90s. I will put this PC in the e-waste pile next to three dead PCs and enter the pricier locked-down world of Mac. I am wary of it, but more than anything need a different environment to spend my working days in, and Mac OSX will provide it, for better or worse. The extra cost (a good $700 or so) is worth it for me just for that.

Having wanted to punish Microsoft for the time lost using Vista, and fixing websites to work on Internet Explorer, I made an inconsistent last minute decision to add Windows 7 to the Mac build – so I can still use all those obscure bits of software I rely upon for web design. Old habits die hard. I wouldn’t have done it but the cost of adding Windows 7 Pro to the Mac is half that of getting an upgrade for my near dead PC, or buying it off the shelf later.

For architect types, the ratio of offices using Macs to those using PCs varies from city to city. This seems largely dependent on which is the common CAD software used in a town. Auckland is a bit of an ArchiCAD town, so they use a lot of Macs. Melbourne is largely devoted to AutoCAD, so Macs are less common, though maybe some may be running it on Mac using Parallels . Today’s news that AutoCAD is once again going to natively support the Mac (including iPhones and iPads) may allow some architects to reconsider the Mac.

Those looking around the web for a comparison of Mac OSX with Windows 7 will encounter pages of vitriol from hard core Mac and PC “fan boys”. For a more balanced look at the two operating systems, you could try this vid:

Or for a less balanced and violent look at the platform battle:

I will try to remember to post about this again in a couple of months, when we’ll see if I’m tearing my hair out with OSX frustration, or I’ve become a Mac fan boy. Or, like the guy in the video, maybe I’ll end up liking both of them for different reasons.

31.08.10 in computing 

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