Category: Design
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Box Living
Dan Heyworth, General Manager of Box Living, is on a mission to improve the range and quality of houses available to New Zealanders. After returning to New Zealand from the UK a few years ago, Dan realised there are really only two main options for getting a house built, either going to a building company for…
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Zero Energy House
I’ve been following Jo Wood’s and Shay Brazier’s Zero Energy House project for nearly three years and I’m very excited to have them both on the show to share some of the details of their design and inspiration. Characteristics of a Good Home I wanted to cut the chase and find out what makes this…
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Collaborative Construction
James L. Salmon is the President of Collaborative Construction, an organisation he created to encourage a better way of building. After spending much of his legal career helping sort out disputes between building owners, contractors and suppliers, James is convinced there’s a much better way of organising, communicating and conducting the design, procurement and building processes. …
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Energy Efficient Homes with Dean Buckeridge
Dean Buckeridge has been designing energy efficient homes for nearly two decades. Along with Russell Devlin, and now also Bob Burnett, I’ve regarded Dean for long time as one of the prominent house designers in Christchurch who has been leading the way in good, solar design. It was a privilege to talk with Dean and…
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Metrapanel
What’s a great way to build a house quickly, with nearly zero waste and at a reasonable price? Prefab of course! And Metrapanel is a prefab solution created and produced right here in New Zealand since 1994. Who is Metrapanel? The original company was started in 1994 by Melissa Savage’s father, Les Wykes. The current…
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Good Homes
We pretty much know what’s in them, but where are all the good homes in New Zealand? And what is it specifically that makes them good? A common response from a survey I posted recently, was that people want to know about other people who have designed and built ‘good homes‘, and how they did…
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How to have a warm home and no power bills in Christchurch
Chris McKay and his family were forced to leave their home in Christchurch after the Canterbury earthquakes in 2011. Like many others, they were faced with the task of finding a new home and they chose to start from scratch and to build. Early on the process, they decided they wanted to have a warm…
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How to make your home solar-ready
This week I was thrilled to be asked some great questions by a subscriber and listener. Among these was a query about how to make your home solar-ready if you can’t afford to install solar straight away. The first premise of this question is one of affordability. It’s not the purpose of this post to…
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Using Design Navigator to Calculate R-Value and Check for Code Compliance
When creating a building design, how do you calculate the R-Value of building elements and check the design for code compliance? As Albrecht Stoecklein, creator of Design Navigator describes, getting this right in construction design can be tricky. Albrecht Stoecklein is a building physicist and has an Energy Management Diploma as well as vast experience…
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What’s a Building Whisperer?
What’s a ‘Building Whisperer’ and what do they have to do with making better homes? This is something I wanted to find out when I got the opportunity to talk with David Bartlett, Vice President IBM Smarter Buildings. David Bartlett is passionate not just about making buildings better in their own right, but improving how…