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Title: WE BUILD HOUSES

Reference number: 6378

Date: 1953

Director: filmed by John L. Paterson

Sponsor: Stewart Kaye & Partners

Sound: silent

Original format: 16mm

Colour: col

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 10.53 mins

Description: Dunedin Self Build Housing Association using unskilled workers to build their own houses designed by Ian Stewart Kaye. General views of the architect planning the houses, views of the men building them and each walking into their new homes.

Winner of Amateur Cine World 'Ten Best', 1954. See also ref. 6944 which mentions this film in this context.

This film is part of the John L Paterson Collection. His papers are held by the Scottish Architects’ Paper Preservation Department at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

Shotlist: title, credits (0:10) In 1952 the Dunedin Self-Build Housing Association, a group of people drawn from various trades and professions approached an architect, Mr Ian Stewart Kaye and asked him to design a house which could be erected by unskilled labour. He did so, and March 1953 they began to build their own houses in their spare time (0.41) The Planning man at desk, c/u drawings plans (1.12) scale model, spinning model of house (1.40) The Construction green field, woman on horseback passes men digging in b/ground (2.09) closer view men in field as they hammer stakes in ground and mark out plots with ropes (2.45) manual digging with pick axes and shovels. (3.18) digging progresses, trenches dug (3.37) cement mixer, manual laying of foundations (4.47) piles of bricks, pan construction site (4.55) c/u bricklaying (5.46) foundations from further away (5.58) raising of parts of wall intercut with shots of brickwork - house begins to take shape (6.32) view from distance, camera moves closer. gvs men at work laying more bricks (7.12) pre-cast concrete blocks to from chimney, montage of features of houses (7.54) laying roof beams (8.11) fitting copper sheet to roof (9.57) man painting (10.05) almost finished staggered row of houses as viewed from side (10.24) front view (10.28) side view men approaching houses. View from rear of man walking into his new home with suitcase, umbrella and hat (10.46) The End (10.53)