Pre-cut construction systems: John Dalton’s ‘budget houses’ in Queensland

Commissioned by Reverand John and Maureen Strugnell to design
their home in Pullenvale, Brisbane, John Dalton Architect elected to
use the Lockwood system, a proprietary engineered building system by
the New Zealand based Lockwood Group, utilizing Western Red Cedar
imported from Canada. How did the Lockwood system, designed
in 1953 by émigré Dutchman Johannes La Grouw for New Zealand
conditions, became a viable option in sub-tropical Brisbane, Australia,
a region with its own timber framing tradition derived ironically from a
discontinued pre-cut house system?

This paper describes a set of market forces – freer trade settings
between New Zealand and Australia harnessed by a timber industry
forced to re-structure by an inflationary business climate – and their
intersection with local debate around an authentic modernism. By
selecting Western Red Cedar in the context of this debate Dalton
knowingly aligned himself with the work of West Coast Regionalist
architects and maybe Auckland based Group Architects. Shared
is an expression of tongue and groove boards. Intrinsic to pre-cut
timber house systems, tongue and groove boards result from the
mechanization of log cabin construction, and it is that most humble of
settler structures that becomes an aesthetic reference.

Discussion around Dalton’s Strugnell House (1971), and the earlier
Salter House (1970) for Lockwood Systems’ Brisbane franchise owner
Peter Salter, provides an opportunity to trace through timber supply
networks in Australian and New Zealand to describe how a material
sourced in Canada and incorporated into a proprietary system delivered
‘authentic’ and environmentally tuned modernist homes in Brisbane.