Speaking at 'The Development of Auckland' event on Tuesday 24th June, Elizabeth Wells, SHA Consenting Manager of the Housing Project Office, delivered an informative presentation entitled 'Special Housing Areas – Opportunities and Challenges'.

A two-day short course on one of the industry's most important topics – sustainable building – will be running in Auckland and Christchurch in June, held by Otago Polytechnic.

The first call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for working with the Crown on the development of housing within Christchurch's new Central and Eastern frames has been released this week.

See above for exclusive videos of Minister of Housing Hon. Dr Nick Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown speaking at EBOSS's Specified 2013 event. Dr Smith and Mayor Brown addressed the challenges facing architects, designers and construction professionals in the building industry, including the large growth projections and government approaches (both central and local) to meet these.

Finally Nick Smith gets support from Auckland City regarding the Auckland Housing Accord.

With the increase in 3D design, it's no wonder services like Sketchfab are popping up. Claiming they will do to 3D visualisation what Youtube did for video, Sketchfab provides a simple service to enable designers to publish, share and embed their files in a visual and interactive way on any website.

Urbanized, a feature-length documentary about the design of cities, is included in the EBOSS 2013 architectural documentary series.

Work began this month on New Zealand’s first living building.

October has seen the highest number of new dwellings being consented since four years ago, with a total number of 1,639, including 168 apartments (129 retirement village units), Statistics NZ announced today.

Last month David Shearer launched Labour's proposed programme to assist with the issue of housing affordability.