Month: December 2014

It would not be too factitious to suggest that many traffic engineering standards seem to presume that land is free. It’s as is if there are dutch pixies at the bottom of the garden who are manufacturing land from the sea.
One example of such a standard is the concept of the “design vehicle”, which I will focus on for the remainder of this post. Of course there are many other examples of traffic engineering standards, such as minimum parking requirements, which have been discussed before on this blog and that also have hugely negative consequences. The reason I want to focus on the “design vehicle” concept is because it does not receive much attention. And also because it has a fundamental impact on so many things.
For those who are not familiar with the “design vehicle” concept let me briefly explain. The “design vehicle” is a phrase that typically describes the largest, heaviest (per axle), and/or least maneuverable vehicle that is expected to use a particular part of the road network. Naturally, the physical footprint required to accommodate this design vehicle subsequently defines most aspects of the physical road geometry, such as turning radii and pavement design. For this reason, the shape of our road networks is very much defined by the design vehicle that is chosen.
You can read up on some of the design vehicle standards recommended by the NZTA here. The design vehicle for the standard street is typically some form of medium rigid truck, such as what is commonly used to move furniture. I’ve illustrated the physical dimensions of this vehicle below.

Read more at: How traffic engineering standards can break our cities « transportblog.co.nz.

Students win national design award for 10sqm building
The design brief was simple – create a breakout space that didn’t require consent and incorporated sustainability, and now four Otago Polytechnic Design students have won the national Sustainable Habitat Construction (SHAC) Pop-up Challenge for their design of an innovative and efficient ten square metre building.
Studio56 was conceived by third-year Design students, Dean Griffiths, Alice Perry, Nina Daniels and Charlotte McKirdy, and was developed to provide a unique learning and collaboration environment for both students and staff, within Otago Polytechnic’s Living Campus – a vibrant community garden and a sustainable model of urban agriculture.
via Students win national design award for 10sqm building | Scoop News.

So, you know you want a sustainable (healthy, efficient, affordable and desirable) home, but where do you start? I’ve covered the fundamentals  of what makes a good energy efficient home, but these are details. What’s the big picture? Where do you start a sustainable house?

Why…what?

Before getting too specific about your plan, here are some questions I recommend being able to answer:

• Why are you renovating/building/remodelling/looking for a new home?
• What are you most dissatisfied with at the moment?
• How many people are you building for?
• How much time are all these people actually going to spend in your home each day, each week, each month…?
• What do you want your weekends to look like?
• Describe your ‘perfect day’. Who are you with? Where are you? What are you doing?
• Does you perfect day involve any of the following:
  • Mowing the lawn
  • Fixing a fence
  • Painting a fence
  • Cleaning windows
  • Cleaning a pool
  • Walking a dog
  • Vacuuming
  • Cleaning three bathrooms
  • Painting the house
  • Cleaning the house
  • Going on adventures with your family
  • Oiling a deck
  • Blowing/sweeping leaves
  • Gardening
  • Relaxing by the pool
  • Working a second job
  • Being at the beach
  • Harvesting vegetables and fruit from your own garden
  • Watching someone else do any of the above

What’s all this got to do with the location and layout of your dream home? A lot. Creating a better, sustainable place to live is about lifestyle. This is where you need to start.

When Natalie and I moved to Auckland our criteria for a place to live included:

1. Walking distance to a primary school with a good reputation
2. Walking distance to a train station and a train commute of 30 minutes or less
3. At least three bedrooms, ideally four (Xavier, our third child had just been born, and we wanted to the option of a home office)

Money

The next big question is about budget. There are two big questions here:

1. How much do you want to pay each month to own and operate a healthy, safe home?
2. How much money do have to design, consent, building and finish your project?

They’re both related. The more you borrow, the more your monthly expenses are going to be. The more you invest on good design, insulation and solar power, the less your monthly running costs are going to be.

As painful, boring or frustrating as it might be, it’s worth spending some time here. Most of the designers I speak to say that a client’s true budget is one of the hardest things to pin down. Knowing exactly how much money you’re wanting to spend and being honest about this upfront will save time money and disappointment by avoiding uneasy scope changes when you do start talking to a designer.

Read more at the excellent “Where do you start a sustainable house?.”

What’s it for?
A resource consent gives approval for things like the use or subdivision of land, the taking of water, the discharge of contaminants in water, soil or air, or the use or occupation of coastal space.
So you could say it’s to look after the resources that will support not only your home, but the area you live in.
How do you get it?
You write an application that says why your project falls within the bounds of the Resource Management Act and relevant local regulations and policies, and you pay a fee.
In practice, most people get someone else to do that for them and according to Dr Roger Blakeley (chief planning officer for Auckland Council) there is an “expectation that you would employ a professional” for this process.
But when I looked into it, it was going to cost between $10,000 and $15,000 to get someone to write our application, so I wrote it myself.
via How to: Get resource consent | Stuff.co.nz.