General Notes

Systemic change is needed to fix the issues we have with buildings in New Zealand. It can’t just be left to individuals choosing to do better. Doing it right and thinking long term needs to become the norm. Changing this social norm is really hard. Even folks that are fully on board intellectually with doing buildings right are still exposed …

Creating net jobs while cutting net emissions is going to be challenging. Although the building sector can do this through efficiency—saving money at the same time as we build better buildings—not every sector of the economy can do this. The least painful way forward is to take the long view to net-zero and plan for it. Individuals, companies and governments …

This showhome in NSW Australia is targeting Passive House performance levels. This is a very challenging project: it is small but also complex with a high form factor because of its non-rectilinear design. Its performance has been tightly optimised in order to contain costs, so it will demand perfect execution by the builder (who is also the client). Alexander Symes …

A fifth of New Zealand’s carbon emissions is due to our built environment. Unlike other parts of the economy, significantly lowering this sector’s carbon emissions can be done while making everything better. We can reduce carbon while creating warm and healthy buildings durable enough to pass on as a legacy to our children and over a typical mortgage term it …

Although we have the Thinkstep report showing that New Zealand’s built environment contributes only 20% of our overall carbon emissions (compared to 40% for the USA and much of Europe) this is still significant. We are unique for a developed country in that we produce a lot of emissions from farming. Designing buildings to be energy efficient and reducing their embodied …

Public swimming pools: a niche type of building but important community fixtures. They are also invariably shocking gluttons for energy thanks to stupid design (or stupid decisions by those commissioning them, who have valued form and overlooked function). As I read this, all I could think about was how the ‘standard approach’ to designing buildings—even big, flash public ones—is simply …

Some interesting analysis here, although you have to read carefully to see the high-performance building connection. Of the $12 billion in infrastructure spending announced last week, $200 million has been allocated for “decarbonisation” of some public assets. That’s only 1.6 % and I and others would argue that we need to work harder on reducing the carbon footprint of existing …