If you’re in the business of designing, building or advocating for better buildings in New Zealand, you need to read “Homes that meet our real needs“, a BRANZ report written by The Workshop. It’s a deep dive into how New Zealanders think and talk about their homes. Some of the insights will be familiar to those of us who have been listening to The Workshop founder Jess Berentson-Shaw, who’s presented at several PHINZ conferences.
The biggest takeaway for me is that the term “high-performance”, applied to housing, is basically useless. People see it as a “nice-to-have” for the wealthy, not a “must-have” for everyone. There’s no agreement on what it means so it’s become a meaningless, moving target. This is pretty challenging for the Passive House community. We need some collective brainstorming to find meaningful alternatives.
The old stories
The report says New Zealanders’ conversations about their homes are completely dominated by a mindset of houses as assets. Everything is viewed through a financial lens: build costs, resale value and return on investment. This narrative is so powerful it sidelines what a home is actually for: providing a safe, healthy, and comfortable environment. When we argue for better buildings by focusing on long-term operational cost savings, the report suggests we might just be reinforcing this unhelpful asset frame, not shifting it. I’ve taken that into account in a few presentations I’m working on.
The research also highlights a number of other unhelpful ways of thinking about housing in New Zealand that get in our way, like “my house, my way,” which frames regulation as an attack on freedom; and the idea that a new house is automatically a good house, which ignores the real likelihood of locking-in poor performance for decades.
So what do we do? The report recommends we stop using the term high-performance and instead describe what a better home does. Think: “homes that keep your family well” or “a home you can rely on.” We need to make the benefits tangible—the quiet, the consistent warmth, the better sleep. And we need to shift the focus from individual consumer choice to creating a better system that delivers good homes for everyone, including renters and future generations.
Putting these insights into practice
This report directly links to the work we’ve been doing with our Passive House Champion programme. The findings in this report are the science behind the strategy we’re teaching. The programme is designed to equip Passive House professionals with the tools needed to put these recommendations into practice. It’s about learning how to reframe the conversation, moving away from myth-busting and technical jargon, and instead connecting with people’s values. It gives you a slide deck and speaking notes to confidently explain Passive House in a way that resonates, using the kinds of narratives this report shows are more effective.
It’s all part of the same mission. We can’t just expect the public to magically demand better buildings if we keep talking about them in ways that don’t connect. As the report points out, people generally trust builders and the Building Code to deliver a good home; they don’t realise the system itself has gaps. Our job is to bridge that understanding, not with fear or complicated data, but with a compelling vision of what a home should be. Passive House Champions is Sustainable Engineering’s contribution to this discussion.
This is the evolution of how we advocate for Passive House. It’s not just about the science of the building any more; it’s about the science of communication.
Reference
Homes that meet our real needs: How people think and reason about housing performance in Aotearoa New Zealand. By Ellen Ozarka, Minette Hillyer, and Jess Berentson-Shaw. (The Workshop, December 2024), www.theworkshop.org.nz.
Report abstract
The report, “Homes that meet our real needs,” by The Workshop, investigates the public and industry mindsets around housing performance in Aotearoa New Zealand. It finds that the term “high performance” is unhelpful, often being associated with luxury and irrelevance rather than being seen as an essential standard. The dominant public narrative frames houses primarily as financial assets, which hinders support for performance improvements that are not seen to add immediate financial value. Other unhelpful frames include viewing housing as a simple consumer choice and the belief that new homes are inherently good homes. The report recommends shifting the conversation by describing the tangible benefits of better homes, framing them as community infrastructure, and empowering the public to demand a better building system rather than just a better individual product.