While we are now building individual homes at greater density, we need to go much further. Not just two-storey townhouses, but building a minimum of three storeys, everywhere. This is where the art of the missing middle, multi-storey, multi-unit design comes into play.

As New Zealand finally embraces medium density housing, it's time to resolve key issues, design well, and build better. 

Aside from the, (continually and largely ignored), urgent warnings from climate scientists, the current rapid and dramatic changing political upheaval in Europe has caused society to finally face the reality of, and need for, swift and fundamental changes to the usage, sources and security of its existing energy supplies.

New Zealand cities, especially Auckland, have traditionally been very low density, but it is now time to stop the sprawl.

Over the past few months there have been reports of multinationals and others coming to New Zealand to set themselves up to make use of our precious supply of green electricity. Are we asleep at the wheel?

Clause C of the NZBC has become extremely complex to navigate.

In this blog post I look at a common product where there is a range of product information available to compare approaches — flexible wall underlays. 

With a growing proportion of our new housing being constructed as medium-density dwellings, this former niche market is rapidly expanding to take in purchasers and occupiers whose primary experience is with the standalone residences they grew up in. This new form of living brings with it a need for a significant degree of re-setting of expectations, both desirable and undesirable.

With potentially thousands of product suppliers needing to provide mandatory information, we need to develop some consensus on how to approach issues so as not to create confusion. In this first blog post in a series on preparing for mandatory product information, I will describe the code and how it relates to products.

Following on from last month’s general thoughts, I consider that there is an urgent need, as an important part of adapting for the future, for the building industry to go back to basics and revaluate the unquestioned assumptions upon which standard design and construction solutions were originally derived from.