Category: New Zealand

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Canterbury MicroArchitecture

Tiny home a true mansion

Her previous construction experience was a bookcase, but that has not stopped Lily Duval from building her own miniature house.
The 27-year-old is two months into the build, and is on track to have most of the construction finished in another couple of months. She is building her house directly on a trailer on communal land in central Christchurch. At 5.5 metres long, 2.5m wide and 4.2m high, Duval’s house fits under the New Zealand Transport Authority’s definition of a light simple trailer.
It requires no building consent.
Her house will cost $30,000 all up, which includes $8000 for the heavy-duty trailer.
via Tiny home a true mansion – news – the-press | Stuff.co.nz.

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Canterbury MicroArchitecture

Interest growing for tiny homes

Christchurch man Bevan Thomas built his own “tiny house” from scratch last year and had seen “hundreds” through it over the past few months.
He believed the tiny house movement was becoming increasingly popular in New Zealand as people looked for ways to live with less impact on the planet, or to avoid being “tied to a half a million dollar mortgage”.

“There’s been phenomenal interest in it. It’s surprising actually how well the concept is taking off.”
Thomas built his moveable house after returning to Christchurch to look after family and finding himself at a loose end.
via Interest growing for tiny homes | Stuff.co.nz.

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Canterbury MicroArchitecture

Tiny home at a tiny price | Stuff.co.nz

Stefan Cook is revelling in the fact his new home cost $438,000 less than the average Christchurch house price.
Cook has now finished building his 3.4-tonne home, complete with a mezzanine bedroom, living area, kitchen and bathroom. The house measures 8 metres by 2.45m and is 4.1m high.
It was built on top of a custom-built trailer so it could be moved and did not require a building consent.
Cook did not have experience in building but it took him only 12 weeks to get it to a ”liveable” standard.
The building cost $22,000 – an amount he would save within two-and-a-half years by not having to pay rent – and most of the materials were salvaged from demolition sites, which helped keep costs down.
via Tiny home at a tiny price | Stuff.co.nz.

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Canterbury MicroArchitecture

Student thinks small to beat rental trap

Christchurch student fed up with high rental costs is building his own “cottage on wheels”.
Stefan Cook is constructing the 2.5 metre by 8m transportable house in a bid to beat the rising cost of student housing and survive the Government’s withdrawal of student allowances for those undertaking post-graduate study.
The 34-year-old geology student at the University of Canterbury said he had been paying up to $160 for a room in a Christchurch flat during the first two years of his bachelor’s degree and expected his $15,000 project would pay for itself within two years.
via Student thinks small to beat rental trap | Stuff.co.nz.

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MicroArchitecture Wellington

Titahi Bay, Porirua City

Matthew ter Borg
Registered Architect
Box 30904
LOWER HUTT
(04)565-1119

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Auckland MicroArchitecture New Zealand

Zero-Energy House

Zero-Modular House. This is a group work, members include David Wong, Jacky Lee, Praveen Karunasinghe and Biran He. We all had different tasks to utilize individual strengths in this group project. My responsibility was to research about solar panels, obstruction masks, and all presentation renders.

Since this is a tech paper, we had done a great amount of research on renewable resources, such as the minimum amount of solar panels needed to generate enough for the household.

>> Zero-Energy House.

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10m2 MainMenu MicroArchitecture New Zealand

GapFiller 10m2 SHAC


The Gap Filler temporary office
In December 2011, a team of young people got together with a vision to build an office for Gap Filler using materials saved from demolition sites around Christchurch. The team developed the design over the summer and with many talented volunteers built the office in a week in January!
The design and build was organised by SHAC in association with the Regeneration and White Elephant charitable trusts. Many skilled and unskilled volunteers helped out – builders, architects, engineers, young people and the occasional passer-by.
All of the building materials are reused, with the exception of building paper, insulation, chicken wire, fixings, clear plastic cladding and 4 sheets of thin treated plywood.
The office has an internal floor area of less than 10 square meters. Our talented designers and builders believe that the office complies with the building code, and is warm, stable, resistant to moisture, durable, and supports fire safety.
This office is experimenting with new building techniques. The east and southern wall structure are made from reused shipping pallets, a technology developed by Mark Fielding of Solabode Ltd in Nelson. The southern wall is clad with reused printing plates kindly donated by the Christchurch Press.
This tiny office will stay here for approximately 3 – 6 months. Power will come initially from neighbours and then, from solar power. Wireless internet access will come from a kind neighbour. Once we leave this site, the office will be relocated on a truck to another vacant site in Christchurch. The internal floor area is less than 10m2 and did not require a building consent.
We are using this land with the generous support of Ascot TV, who lost their building on this site in the earthquakes. They are now located at 300 Colombo Street, up the road.
What’s SHAC?
The Sustainable Habitat Challenge is a network of people designing and building more sustainable buildings and neighbourhoods. SHAC projects are educational in nature, teaching those involved new skills. The buildings they create are designed with non-profit group or charity in mind; in this case, Gap Filler. Gap Filler has been gifted this movable building which will be used as an office..
SHAC – affordable, delightful housing, micro architecture, simple building, and more… SHAC is about living well with less reliance on resources, and finding our purpose. See shac.org.nz for more info.
What’s Gap Filler?
Gap Filler is a creative urban regeneration initiative started in response to the September 4, 2010 Canterbury earthquake, and revised and expanded in light of the more destructive February 22, 2011 quake. It is now administered by the Gap Filler Charitable Trust. See gapfiller.org.nz for more info.
Gap Filler aims to temporarily activate vacant sites created by the quakes within Christchurch with creative projects for community benefit, to make for a more interesting, dynamic and vibrant city. Gap Filler has done a number of projects to date around Christchurch such as a book exchange, painted pianos, a community space and petanque pitch in Lyttelton, and outdoor events such as cinema and live music. Two projects have been completed in Sydenham recently, too – the outdoor chess set next to Honey Pot Café and Wayne Youle’s shadow board mural (working with Christchurch Art Gallery).
THANK YOU to: the landowners – ASCOT TV (especially Chris), Graham at ECO Framing, Barry Dowrick, CPIT and the Otago Polytechnic for the loan of many tools and Mark Fielding of Solabode Ltd in Nelson for the 5 prefab pallet walls and The Christchurch Press for the metal printing plates.
we thank you!
tim, clayton, barnaby, barry, lani, florian, ben, emma, ella, alice, amber, rachel, regan, felicity, alan, nick, seth, naomi, jules, the Australian group of young volunteers, ants, ann, nev, bob, dave, tarn, barry, darcy, Andrew, kyle, nastassja, Shayne, and kerry
Southern Demolition, Terra Lana Insulation, The Pumphouse [See Photo below], The Window Marketplace, Addington Demolition, Christchurch Demolition and Salvage, Clyne and Benny, Skelly Holdings, Dulux, Steel and Tube, White Elephant Trust and F3 Design, Solabode Ltd, Firth, and PSP

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10m2 MicroArchitecture New Zealand

Wood Cutters’ Paradise


For more information, contact jamesgang@xtra.co.nz

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Central North Island Featured New Zealand

Clean Energy Centre explores possibility of off-grid housing community

 

 
Taupo could be in for a new eco-sustainable housing community, reshaping the way houses receive heat, electricity, water, and use wastewater.

The New Zealand Clean Energy Centre (NZCEC) is currently investigating whether or not this would be feasible.

The community would use geothermal or biomass heat to heat homes; generate electricity from solar and wind sources; and reuse wastewater by drip-irrigating it to energy crops to provide future fuel for the community.

NZCEC said out of 75 people surveyed over the last two days, 33 had been in favour of the idea.

“The New Zealand public has demonstrated a keen interest in adapting their lifestyles to live in ways that are friendlier to the environment. They want to do their part to help maintain NZ’s 100% Pure, clean green image, they want to find ways of reducing their energy bills, and they want to increase their control over energy supply security,” says chief executive Rob McEwen.

He says the project would benefit  Taupo’s economy, enticing domestic and international migrants, especially Silicon Valley entrepreneurs looking to make New Zealand their home.

McEwen believes the pitch to these potential residents would go something like this:

“Taupo generates 75 times more clean energy than we consume (and thanks to geothermal, that ratio is growing). We have magnificent natural beauty (think of Taupo as the Tahoe of NZ), we have world class fibre optic internet, we have ample water, we are central to 75 percent of NZ’s population, we are home to the NZ Clean Energy Centre and oh, by the way … Taupo is developing a comprehensive off grid sustainable lifestyle community.”

 He says the next steps are to further quantify interest, then develop the concept to include drawings of the proposed community, a 3D animated walkthrough, and costings.

One way to make it feasible would be to use  semi-rural land on the outskirts of town so that homeowners’ investment in the land would be lower.

“Another way is to negotiate reduced development contributions with council. Unlike a typical subdivision where council needs to put in a lot of infrastructure such as water, waste water, power reticulation and phone connections, none of those services would be required in an off-grid community,” says McEwen.

>>> Clean Energy Centre explores possibility of off-grid housing community :: Idealog 

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10m2 Canterbury Featured MicroArchitecture

Office to rise from the rubble

One person’s rubble might be potential material for Gap Filler’s new office.

Sustainable Habitat Challenge (SHAC) and ReGeneration Trust New Zealand are collaborating to build an office for Gap Filler in Colombo St, Sydenham, with the help of volunteers and as many recycled or sustainable materials as possible.

Gap Filler project co-ordinator Coralie Winn said she was humbled by the plan.

“It’s a very generous gesture that they are doing this for us and also teaching young people building and design skills,” she said.

Gap Filler, which emerged after the September 2010 earthquake, has overseen several urban regeneration projects, such as the Lyttelton Petanque Club, the “book fridge” and the painted-piano project.

It has been based in Winn’s front room.

“Since November, we’ve hired a part-time helper, and people have been coming and going,” she said.

“It will be great to have an office that’s not at home. It would be quite nice to fill a gap with our own office.”

SHAC’s Tim Bishop said the frame of the 10-square-metre office would be built from recycled timber from demolished buildings, and the windows would also be recycled.

Waste polystyrene would be used for insulation, while the external walls would be constructed from wooden pallets usually used for transporting heavy goods.

“We want to show how to creatively reuse material left over from the earthquake. It’s a bit of a test. A few things are going to be new, like nails and building paper,” he said.

The project also aims to show young people that it can be easy and fun to build small buildings with sustainable materials.

Demolition and salvage yards, including Southern Demolition & Salvage, Musgroves and the Window Market Place, are also involved in the project.

The Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology is contributing equipment and helping to find a licensed builder.

The build will take a week, from January 23 to January 28.

Volunteers can sign up here.

 

via Office to rise from the rubble – the-press | Stuff.co.nz.