Producing the House: The Commonwealth Experimental Building Station and Housing Research

Abstract

Established during the Second World War, the Commonwealth Experimental Building Station (CEBS) researched new building technologies with an emphasis on housing construction. The CEBS experimented with materials and design prototypes in collaboration with both industry and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which later became the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Based in North Ryde, Sydney, the CEBS was associated with the Department of Post-War Reconstruction during the Second World War and then moved to the Department of Works and Housing. The paper introduces the CEBS’s initial aims through its housing research and design experimentation with built prototypes in Sydney during the 1940s. This research into house design, positioned at the edge of innovation, is situated in the wider housing context of the period. Federally funded building research was predicated by the Commonwealth of Australia’s housing shortage during and extending beyond the Second World War. Due to a lack of traditional materials such as bricks and timber from the war effort, the agency trialled developing low-cost, prefabricated concrete and steel houses. These housing experiments are considered in connection to cultural framings of home and its physicality in circulation at the time. After the Second World War, the detached suburban house gained momentum in the political and cultural vernacular as the ideal house for ownership. By examining the CEBS’s activities in connection to this background, the paper asks how the nation-state developed mass-production systems to enable government-sponsored agencies to produce more housing for more people but also how understandings of house and home surround and influence innovation in design.