Papua New Guinea Housing Commission 1968–1983: Optimism Within Islands of Practice in the Provision of Housing

Extract:<br/>When on September 16, 1975, Papua New Guinea gained independence and became the newest island-nation-state in the Pacific region, processes of decolonisation were already underway.<br/><br/>Amongst the issues facing the new nation-state was an acute and persistent housing shortage, a crisis that had been described in detail by Balwant Singh Saini in a 1973 report commissioned by Michael Somare, the Chief Minister of Papua and New Guinea, titled “Urban Housing in Papua New Guinea.” In response to the report, the mandate of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea Housing Commission (TPNG HC), formed in 1968 to provide housing for public servants and their families, was broadened.<br/><br/>At Independence the rebadged National Housing Commission (NHC) was tasked with strategies for housing all Papua New Guinean migrant workers. But because attention in the lead-up to Independence was focused on urgent governance issues (the drafting of a new constitution, the floating of a new currency), the NHC, unhitched from the Commonwealth and<br/>with limited interdepartmental exchange or oversight, sustained a culture that supported architectural experimentation: an island of innovative practice in a sea of bureaucratic uncertainty.