Hostile as Anywhere

The Pilbara district of northwestern Australia's outback is a sort of hell. There is barely enough vegetation on the stony hills and sere plains to support the area's population of wild donkeys, kangaroos and emus; only rock pythons, death adders and hoards of stinging insects seem to have adapted comfortably to the climatic extremes: winds that reach velocities of 140 m.p.h., dust storms that swirl out of the nearby Great Sandy Desert, noonday temperatures as high as 180DEG F. For man, it is as hostile a place as any in the world.

But man has come to the Pilbara, drawn by the region's immense iron ore reserves and the increasing global demand for the metal. For most miners, the aim is to make money quickly and get out. But in one community the situation is different. Shay Gap, a tiny (pop. 862), two-year-old town 120 miles inland from Port Hedland on the Indian Ocean, is proving that even the harshest environment can be tamed.

New Stresses. Shay Gap was founded for sound business reasons. Officials of Goldsworthy Mining Ltd., aware that high wages alone could not keep needed workers in the Pilbara for long, decided to build a community that would make life in the outback more tolerable. Their Perth-based architect, Lawrence Howroyd, 45, quickly realized that merely air-conditioning the houses and sealing the windows to keep out dust and insects would not be enough. In the Pilbara, he explains, "the environment throws up all kinds of stresses to which people are not accustomed--the heat, the isolation, fear of children's being in the sun, the effect of the sun on women's complexions."

Howroyd turned to the world's desert areas for useful precedents and found two in the ancient settlements of the Middle East. To overcome the feeling of being surrounded by hostile nature, the Arabs had built walls around their cities. To get relief from the fierce sun, they had crowded their houses close together so that one shaded another. Howroyd followed, and updated, those principles. He situated Shay Gap in a semicircle that not only lends a sense of protective enclosure but also provides late-afternoon shade. Similarly, the town's prefabricated houses are tightly clustered in groups so that they cast shade on their neighbors or on a central play area for children.

Howroyd also wanted to create a sense of community. He laid out narrow, shaded walkways instead of broad streets through most of the town. By thus squeezing out cars, which are parked on Shay Gap's perimeter, he forced people to meet whenever they go outside. Indeed, says Resident Mrs. Jill Nicholls: "A greeting is not just a wave as you drive past. It's a stop and a chat." As a result of all the careful planning, life in Shay Gap is pleasant, employee turnover is low, and Goldsworthy Mining is satisfied that the town is worth every cent of its $10 million construction cost.

Planners and architects now see the town as a model full of lessons for similar developments, even those far from the Pilbara region. Howroyd's next projects may be in the very places where he found his original inspiration. Government agencies in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran, seeking better ways to plan their new desert cities, want the Australian architect to re-establish in their lands the concept of a protective town with narrow streets, people in constant contact and no cars.

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