Category: Affordable Housing
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My Insulation Experiment
Overhead, the rain pelted down on the metal roof just above my head. I later found out that it was a record rain storm for Auckland. I believed it. The roof of the circa 1920s house I was crouched in bore an almost identical resemblance to the construction and thermal performance of the simple corrugated steel…
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118: Open Source Sustainability
Jae Sabol is no stranger to success. While starting, growing and selling businesses in the holistic health and personal development fields, Jae dedicated 15 years to planning a community to facilitate open source sustainability. That community now exists and Jae and his team have big plans for developing ‘The Highest Good of All’. One Community…
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How to get a good home from a group builder
Group or volume (project) builders get a bad rap sometimes for perpetuating bad building practise. But it is possible to get a good home from a group builder. Why build? I started out by asking Tim why he was building. Like anyone involved in Christchurch any time since 2011, he has quite a story. After…
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Designing Environmentally Functional Homes
Duncan Firth feels ‘compelled’ to do what he does – designing environmentally functional homes. He’s very conscious of humans taking more than giving from our environment and he sees the potential for architecture to be a positive influence in correcting this balance. Responding to the Environment Many architects (and people writing about houses) talk about buildings…
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How Much Does Homestar Cost?
I read an article in Stuff yesterday that got my heart rate up. I strongly believe that tools like Homestar are needed to help make houses better. And I’m anxious to correct some misconceptions and to address the question of ‘how much does Homestar cost?’ What is Homestar? Homestar is New Zealand’s comprehensive environmental rating tool…
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Q & A
Something a little different this week. I’ve had some excellent questions sitting in my inbox for a while and I thought that many could benefit from them. Here’s just a sample. Got similar questions? Please get in touch and if I can’t help, we’ll put the word out to find someone who can. Got a…
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Self-Help Housing
Self-help housing is not your typical DIY. I continually comment on the poor standard of the New Zealand housing stock, but we can’t ignore the fact that there are people in even worse housing situations. At least 1 billion of them in fact. Canopy Housing Project is a self-help housing organisation based in Leeds, U.K., creating decent homes by renovating derelict…
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Affordable Housing
I’ve tried to avoid the issue of affordable housing. It’s a term that gets used a lot and in all likelihood, the provision of affordable housing is going to be an election issue. I avoid it because it’s often brought up as a negative issue. As a problem. But when someone such as Daiman Otto…