The Hawkes Bay House. Just Another Open Home ?

Originally published in Bay Buzz, Issue 12 May 10th 2013

Herertaunga, A carved House of Taradale

How far the house and culture of home making has evolved, from our ancestral cave dwellers to Grand Designs and other weekly exposes. Through the ages, the house in whatever form has stood as shelter and the focus of family life and ritual. If placed in multiple groupings it becomes community. An integral part of being human.

The capacity to dream has expanded the notion of house over the millennia. Perhaps taken for granted as a place of the day-to-day, the house is far from an ordinary idea.

How the New Zealand idea of house has evolved as a cultural artifact is an interesting story.

The whare of native origin was low tech, built of local material and skill. Infused with the function of shelter and story telling. Taking over where the cloak left off as a mediator between the body and an environment from which comfort was hard won. A cloak with foundations, conceived as an extension of the body in space. Followed by the  ubiquitous utilitarian cottages and sheds. By necessity of place and time, simple in form and function.

The European and other settlers brought with them also tradition and preconception of house. A roof, four walls, a front entrance, a rear entrance, some windows, a roof shaped so, a hearth. Composed and constructed using the technology andstyle of the time – Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Modern, Post Modern etc. The story has grown, yet ask a child to draw a house and what do they unequivocally produce?

The fusion of mana whenua ideas, farmyard utility, immigrant memory, fantasy, available resources, technology and skills have coalesced into what has come to define NZ domestic architecture.

The house reaches deep into our consciousness through time to our collective memory. The links deeper perhaps than we realize as we visit yet another open home. A loaded concept, the house is symbolic of our psyche and an expression of our self; but at the same time a status symbol and a means to economic advantage.

Ngamatea Homestead by John Scott

What is a house in Hawkes Bay?

In the popular mind, the image still remains of house in landscape, not house in community. Is that the Hawke’s Bay dream? This image of solitude harks to our pioneer days perhaps, but is also an image tied closely to our consumer culture and dreams of success. House and success are entwined as a measure of status, an expression of self and wealth.

So, the house is much more than just shelter from the elements. It is hard to disentangle what is a complex web of economics, supply chains and politics that has shaped our idea of house. The cave, with life centered around the fire, has become life centered around television, market economics, potential capital gain and image. The hunt with spear has been replaced with a weekend looking at open homes.

Real estate is the one basket most Kiwis put all their eggs in, an approach that continues to have numerous risks.

No matter what part of the economic cycle, the NZ psyche is all about house ownership. Dinner party snippets re latest valuations, the addition, the choice of bathroom tile, reverberate throughout the nation. Either we are making money, losing it or on the way to either outcome via our ideas about one of the most basic human needs, shelter.

The majority of the Bay house building starts are in the new suburbs such as Arataki, Frimley, etc. They generally lack that specific sense of uniqueness or place that one would expect as a product of Hawke’s Bay climate and culture. Perhaps if houses were the basis of suburbs rather than vice versa it may allow for a more overt sense of uniqueness in our suburbs.

If there was one thing I couldn’t give up in my Hawke’s Bay house it would be the ability to effortlessly move from outdoors to in. The Hawke’s Bay house modulates the space between interior and exterior. At times acting to blur the two; at other times giving precedence to one over the other as clearly the better choice for habitation at any particular time. The extremes of season managed via intelligent design. It enables inclusion of nature where it can and turns its back when necessary. It is exactly whatever we need it to be.

Te Mata House by Stevens Lawson Architects

What are we building?

A survey of NZIA National awards over ten years shows there to be four winnersin Hawke’s Bay (??). Of those projects only two of them for houses, and one of those an enduring architecture award for a house built in 1974. That houses have only been national award winners twice over the last years is interesting.

One is the Te mata house by Auckland firm Stevens Lawson;the other is the Warren and Mahoney designed Foster House in Havelock North completed in 1974.

Both these projects fit the stereotype of large house in the landscape. Both houses carefully modulate and control the relationship to the outdoors. Outdoor rooms are created in both projects. Rooms suited to Hawke’s Bay summer. Interiors imbued with warmth for winter frosts. Carefully placed in the landscape. Exquisitely crafted. Worth well over the million dollar mark. Iconic New Zealand architecture.

Local Awards are much more generous to residential architecture but not at the expense of standalone dwellings rural or semi rural in  nature or beach houses. Exceptions would be Rod Drurys town house in Havelock North a 2012 winner. Of the  approximately (need to confirm Numbers)residential building consents for new houses built in the Bay annually, dependent on economic conditions, there is generally a very low turnout for buildings designed by architects. The competition provided by Horvath et al proving too much for the average punter trying to maximize his square metres  in pavalova paradise.

The majority of New Zealand housing was built in a couple of key periods -- 1920’s, post-war 1950’s and 1970’s. The new suburbs created in those eras were not the sole domain of the group home builders although they dis have a market share. The quantity of architect-designed homes in the 60’s and 70’s was quite a remarkable compared to today. The likes of John Scott, Barry Sweet, Peter Holland, Len Hoogerberg, Guy Natusch and Paris Magdalinos were all busy in the new suburbs of the Bay building ‘dream’ homes not just for doctors and lawyers, but for ordinary people. They continued a tradition inherited from the like of Walter Chapman- Taylor LA Louis Hay and others.

Typical Hawkes Bay Suburb 2013

A generation later, the game has completely changed. A drive through any of the new suburbs will illustrate quite clearly that ‘design’ has been put on the backburner. Cookie cutter cottages inhabiting cookie cutter streets provide the market with adequate shelter, with streets providing plenty of room to maneuver for cars but could be anywhere.

Designer houses are left as an elite luxury to park next to the Audi. Learning from the experiments of the past seems largely lost. The trickledown effect, if any, to the suburb makers has seemingly dried up.

What should we have learned from the pioneers of house design in the Bay? What makes a John Scott house still a sought after proposition?  What makes a stay at any of the Blackbarn houses so popular? A sense of the aesthetic and beauty. An understanding of how a building might manage that interface between human need for shelter and dream. Celebration of the landscape and modulation of the interior/exterior experience.

Get the basics right in our houses, perhaps the city will follow.

The  challenge for the housing industry, territorial authorities included, is to somehow get back to where we were and, when considering an opportunity to build, reinsert some of the dream into what is on offer to the mass market.

The real estate agents as usual tap directly into the universal vein – Living the Hawke’s Bay Dream … Paradise in the Hills of Havelock North … More than just a place to live.

How that gets translated into an affordable model is the key.

It is the business of the architect to harmonise the world of necessity with the world of romance. A Home is not a ‘machine to live in’ as some of the Moderns claim. A Home is an extension of Ourselves and just as man does not live by bread alone so his Home must have a Soul as well as a Body.” James Walter Chapman-Taylor

Enabling Innovation in Public Building.

UNStudio Te Papa competition proposal 2005 

Originally Published in Architecture NZ No. 2 March / April 2013 

If you want a pie you go to the pie shop, easy. If you want an inspirational, cutting edge piece of public architecture where do you go? 

Post awards season, with a fresh new year upon us, it may be time to contemplate what the profession and public tend to forget in all the red carpet and daring cantilevers, Architecture is about ‘process' as icebergs are about what lies beneath. Architecture is also about ‘speed’ as a sloth about rush hour. What is flaunted at awards time is by and large the result of a long and convoluted process the more so with Public buildings. The time from which client demand initiates a creative idea, catalyzing capital, project management  and consultants to produce architecture with a capital “A” can span years. That process is usually initiated by the commissioning of design services.

In the private sector market forces, competitive practice and connections form the basis for divvying up the x-dollars-worth of design fees in any given year. But in the public sector where tax dollars and rate payers money are underwriting architecture with a capital “P” (for Public in case there was confusion) clear process needs to be in place in order that the Public can have faith that what is been delivered is both best practice and best possible outcome from a global point of view.

Currently, strategy and processes for procurement of design services are at the mercy of individual councils, council controlled organizations, government departments and project managers. Requests For Proposals (RFP) and Expressions Of Interest (EOI) are the status quo method of alerting the design community to a demand for services. The local gentlemen’s club is, by and large, no place to spend public cash on design procurement albeit a paper napkin has traditionally been the basis for sketch design.

Any RFP is going to have a rigorous schedule of required documentation, key dates and clear criteria for selection. Most RFP selection criteria is weighted capital P for Price and Past experience which just possibly equates to P for market Protection and Please tick the fair and open democratic society in theory box. Is this process enabling the best value for public spend on architecture ? Is it enabling Innovation? Is it growing a culture and industry. Probably not. But project managers see it as a fairly risk-free method and the firms with the experience can continue to notch it up. It would be interesting to see an RFP come through, where the project is such that previous experience is irrelevant because the building type is completely new and requires a completely new way of thinking, like a 21st century library, for instance, or house of culture in a tsunami zone.

The NZIA has a clear policy on the value of design competitions as a method of procurement and means of delivering best practice to the public realm, especially relevant for any project with high cultural significance. The RIBA, RIAA, AIA, etc, all have similar policies. Having recently provided advice to the Hastings City Art Gallery (HCAG) competition project, I had a valuable insight into the positive and negatives of what I thought at the time to be a rigorously designed procurement process.

The outcomes of that process: 150 ROIs became about 30 submissions, a couple of internationals and zero students, even with a decent student prize. The quality of submissions across a broad range contained no clear wow moments. The wow’s, perhaps, left at the door by a brief filtered through the politics of local government and the local monarchy. Feedback from various architects has suggested timing was to blame for the poor turnout, as well as a bit of burnout post the Queens Wharf  design competition; the one you have when you are not having a competition – the resultant segmented sluggish ode to the Cloud is testament, perhaps, to that particular broken process.

The HCAG competition was an opportunity to see if it was possible, via a competition procurement process, to enable innovative outcomes. I was not surprised all the big studios got their graduates busy. I was surprised none of those graduates went it alone, with the carrot of prize money, accolades and a potential public project. The process did not shine a light on any notable new providers, albeit the third place getter was relatively unknown and young compared to the aged winners. There is some humour in a Athfield and Austin taken out first and second at this stage in their careers. Where were the kids?

Gone are the days when gradates can rely on friends and family to build the practice around baches, single family homes in the burbs, and renovations to Ponsonby villas. There is a new paradigm in place, driven by GFC, urban expansion and evolution, where urban design, multi-unit housing, public space and buildings, the city,are the focus of architectural research. So what vehicles are there in place to grow the culture or enable new ideas and thinking, hammered out in the academies to evolve in this area? The RFP process doesn’t necessarily engage with growing the industry’s pool of talent, which creates some tension regarding the use of that process and public money, which responsibility suggests should be used to do precisely that. It is in other industries where culture is the product.

Ultimately, architecture is about celebrating new ideas, the environment, technology and culture; what better way to invigorate the sector than using public money. We are the culture makers. The Northern Europeans run a democratic model regards procurement but their culture industry is much more highly evolved than ours, with an evolved understanding of the opportunities of integrated research in the building industry, where the value of logs are considered much more than a pile of wood chips heading towards a paper plant and the value of the new generation’s ideas and technological and cultural innovation are celebrated. All public buildings are put through a design competition model, whether an open invitation or invite. Design concepts are given weight, as well as other criteria, with world leading results.

It will be interesting to see how the current New Urban Village competition in Christchurch pans out, already at odds with a Department of Building and Housing RFP, which was released almost simultaneously as well as sharing HCAG end of year/ holiday timing.

Procurement process for public works is a space that is in need of proactive engagement by the industry, academia and the public. It seems this has started to some extent in Auckland with discussion around the benefits/disbenefits of  the Super City having separate procurement processes for design phases and developed design,detail phases of projects. I am not certain what the answer is for the NZ context. I am certain that architecture is not always about building per se. There are some more highly evolved models of procurement out there which are creating some very interesting public projects globally. Perhaps it is time that awards were not only handed out to designers but also organisations for establishing innovative processes for commissioning architecture. Chicken or the egg. I can think of one Public project in Tamaki that recently suffered from a less than perfect RFP process at the expense of the community who will largely be happy with a new community facility just not necessarily aware of opportunities that may have been missed by not inviting the best ideas on the table prior to commissioning. Scrambled egg or fried chicken.

Auckland City Art Gallery rendering of FJMT/ Archimedia proposal

Meanwhile some words on procurement from Chris Saines, director of Auckland City Art gallery, who was charged with procuring and subsequently delivering one of the best public buildings commissioned in New Zealand in a number of years, the Auckland Art Gallery addition and renovation.

AV Question:

What was the process you followed for procurement of designers for the project and to what extent do you think that process enabled innovative solutions ? 

CS:The process began with an advertising campaign directed to the wider architectural design community. The call for Expressions of Interest, which was made through major newspapers and specialist architectural print and online media in New Zealand and Australia, essentially asked firms to outline their experience, expertise, personnel and capacity to undertake the project.

As I recall, we received around 35 EOI's in response - most were from New Zealand, a number came from Australia, and several came from outside Australasia. All proposed to partner with a New Zealand firm. We had been clear that, were the selected firm not New Zealand based, they would need to establish an Auckland office, which was widely interpreted as an opportunity to partner locally.

Once the project team had reviewed the EOI's, we returned to roughly half of the respondents, providing them with a high level brief for the project. At this point we issued a Request for Proposal, the aim of which was to seek more detail from the design teams on how they would respond to the broad requirements of the brief (albeit at a conceptual level).

Once those RFP's were received, we scored and ranked them against a series of key criteria, then invited the 7 top-scoring the firms to develop a high level response to a detailed design brief, which provided them with such things as bulk and location studies, geotechnical studies and planning reports, a report on the history of the site's pre- and post-colonial occupation, a conservation plan for the existing building, visitor and non-visitor studies, and so on.

We were wanting to see how the firms focused on such things as designing a building that was fit for purpose, as defined by the brief, the extent to which they had introduced design innovation, the extent to which they had thought through the Gallery's vision for the project, and the like. Of the 7, two withdrew and 5 firms ultimately submitted concept design proposals.

We conducted intensive interviews of each of the firms, then asked them to present their full team and their proposals to a meeting of all staff and a number of key Gallery stakeholders, including our Board and Maori advisory group, Haerewa. The proposals needed to be illustrated with a number of key views, plans and elevations, and several firms created computer-generated fly-throughs.

At the end of this interview and presentation process, the project team met again and went through a rigorous scoring and ranking against its key (weighted) design criteria. A number of external (non-Council) experts were also involved in the interviews, and we also took their recommendations into account.

In broad terms, this was the procurement process used to engage FJMT+Archimedia: architects in association, to undertake the design. The entire process, as I recall, took about 3-4 months, from advertising to announcement.

I remain convinced that the process did, indeed, throw up innovative responses to the brief. In fact, setting aside the ultimate design,, several of the unsuccessful concept design proposals had developed some genuinely exciting responses to the brief, none of which we had anticipated.

  

AV: How was the argument for a design competition process sold to stakeholders ? Based on economics? Precedents oversees etc ?

CS: We did not set out to create an open entry design competition. It was a more structured EOI and RFP procurement process, which we deliberately adopted, based on a number of relevant precedents within the then Auckland City Council's experience.

We felt that the existing building and its highly constrained heritage site required, at a minimum, a degree of experience, innovation and sophistication in the way that heritage and new built fabric could be integrated.

It was not a question of cost as either process would have likely cost more or less the same - albeit a design competition would have taken more time to conduct, and likely have given public visibility to the competing schemes. Our key stakeholders and funders did, however, have visibility on the final 5 schemes and expressed their confidence in the methodology we adopted.

I realise there are pros and cons of open competitions versus more restricted design processes, but in the end we were not building on a green field site and we were needing a design that could address a large number of complex technical, heritage and planning requirements - this was not the 'new iconic building on the waterfront' moment.

Interestingly Chris ends on the “new Iconic building on the waterfront moment.” Some might say Te Papa moment but we all know that he is referring to the Sydney opera house Bilbao moment that we have yet to procure and has been mouted for the super city harbor edge. Lets hope we can sort out the process to make that moment last a bit longer and inspire a a few newbies to put their money where their digital mouths are and hit the ground running, perhaps even a few lengths in front of their mentors…evolution.

A House to Match My Prius

Typical suburban housing the only green element is the colour of the lawn

Re_housing the Kiwi Dream ?

Originally Published Bay Buzz issie No. 11 March 5. 2013 

Simply put, an ‘eco-house’ is an environmentally low-impact home designed and built using materials and technology that reduces its carbon footprint and lowers its energy needs, creating a legacy of environmental responsibility rather than disregard.

Sounds easy enough. Just head off to the Eco house yard and buy one. Delivered in a week saving you money on your power bill in three. Everyone should have one. Just sign on the dotted line of the recycled A4 contract.

Unfortunately the building industry is neither as clever or as sexy as the automobile industry. Henry Ford, grandfather of mass production, sent the model T down the assembly line, creating unforeseen manufacturing efficiencies, and inspiring architects of the time to imagine what if we could do the same with housing. Factory produced housing had been around for a while, the colonies were built from mail order, your Victorian villa included, but Ford’s thinking put the idea on steroids. The 20^th century is littered with well-intentioned factory produced housing schemes.

The car companies have continued to innovate. They realize to remain relevant they have to push the green envelope. Safer, faster and more economical taking advantage of all the latest in gadgetry, sensors and logic boards, shrinking carbon footprints and growing efficiency.

Meanwhile, in the housing market, technology remains very last century, treated 4 x 2 and a 24-ounce hammer … she’ll be right mate.

As a consumer I can easily procure a petrol-sipping miser, green lean and mean fresh off an optimized low-energy robotic production line from any of the big auto manufacturers. Meanwhile my house remains barely insulated, let alone with individually controlled and zoned environmental comfort like on offer in the car yards.

Our housing stock generally leaks energy like a sieve, creates masses of landfill through an antiquated construction process, causes more hospital admissions of children than monkey bars, and costs us an unaffordable portion of our incomes, as well as generally been aesthetically deficient.

Is there a ‘green’ housing option available for the average consumer looking to house their average-sized family on an average-sized income? What kind of driveway will my Prius look its most awesome in?

It all gets a bit confusing where the rubber hits the road or the mud hits the straw bale as the case maybe.

What, why and how can consumers get a grip on the options open to them if they want the same eco features as the auto industry can so easily provide?

- Eco players

A lot of research been done over the years, with various attempts to bring ideas and products to market. Unfortunately without a central clearing house of information there is no clarity for the market. So pick your advisor wisely and hope the research promoted is substantiated.

Here is a quick overview of the key players and promoters in NZ in no particular order.

Beacon Pathways

Beacon Pathways objective is to “transform New Zealand’s homes and neighbourhoods to be high performing, adaptable, resilient and affordable.” It grew out of a research consortium formed in 2004 to fulfill a six-year research contract with the Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FRST). Original shareholders were: New Zealand Steel, Waitakere City Council, Fletcher Building, BRANZ and Scion.

NZGBC

The New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC) is a not-for-profit organisation “dedicated to accelerating the development and adoption of market-based green building practices.”

The NZGBC was established in July 2005 and in 2006 became a member of the World Green Building Council (WGBC). The WGBC is an international not-for-profit organisation that aims to move the global property industry and built environment towards sustainability.

NZGBC promotes the idea of ratings tools to inform the consumer via a standardised measurement of energy efficiency for all building types, including residential houses, via their Home star product. Licensed “green” professionals assess and assign ratings; the organization generates its income via licensing fees.

BRANZ Incorporated Society


BRANZ is a significant investor in industry research and knowledge dissemination to the wider building and construction industry. It receives almost all its income from the Building Research Levy, and invests this to achieve benefits for the New Zealand community by “improving the knowledge base of the New Zealand building and construction sector.”

EECA

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) encourages, supports, and promotes energy efficiency, energy conservation, and the use of renewable sources of energy in New Zealand

Department of Building and Housing DBH

Of course the government is involved via the DBH, whose influence is generated through the Building Act 2004 the national building code and standards. The latter stipulates that “each building shall achieve the performance criteria specified in the building code for the classified use of that building”. There are minimums required for insulation and weather tightness. There is a specific clause the objective of which is to facilitate the efficient use of energy.

Universities

The universities contribute via architecture schools with research initiatives on sustainable building, and sustainability and ‘green’ building practice are well-placed in the curriculum and an integrated part of a young architect’s education. It has been so at least since the 1970s. Victoria Universities success at the Solar Decathalon in Washington DC  last year a clear indication of a new generations potential.

The NZIA New Zealand Institute of Architects has a policy statement on sustainability and generally its members are aware of best practice via their university education or continuing education efforts.

Victoria university "First light" eco house world beating project.

Eco-building in Hawke’s Bay

With the building sector lcontributing 25 % of our landfill waste, and using 40- 50% of our energy what opportunities are there for innovation and lowering the energy and carbon footprint of homes in the Bay?

The Best home project – a Hastings District Council (HDC) initiative in partnership with Beacon Pathways and Hovarth Homes, a local volume-housing supplier – has recently brought a new product to market.

HDC tasked Horvath Homes to build a show home in Havelock North that would “exceed current building regulations to achieve a minimum six stars on the Homestar™ energy efficiency rating tool   for no more than 5% additional cost of a standard build.”

The Council seeks to leverage this partnership as ground breaking and innovative, creating new intellectual property and value for the local community. However, it is unclear whether the  approximately $220,000 invested thus far has actually created any knew knowledge.

Homestar already provides a rating tool why do we need another one? Doesn’t it just add confusion to an already messy market place?

Aren’t financial incentives via tax rebates, as well as a streamlined building consent process and clarity of strategy across the board the way to go? It works in other countries.

The show home incorporates the basics of sustainable building practice such as passive solar design, water recycling and onsite power generation.

The key elements of passive design are:

• Building orientation to sun;
• Insulation over and above the building code minimum;
• Double-glazing as minimum;
• Allowance of natural heating and cooling via controlled seasonal access to direct solar radiation;
• Provision of thermal mass. (Thermal Mass is is the capacity of a material to store heat energy)
• Have glazing correctly placed and sized to aid with passive heating and cooling and natural ventilation;
• Include appropriate shading provided by overhangs and screens;

The house is standard fare to look at – 187 sqm, 2 bathrooms, 2-car garaging, 4 bedrooms. Its $500,000 price tag takes it out of the league of the majority of the district’s population – affordable by Auckland standards, but still on the wrong side of the equation relative to local incomes.

Is a house of this size, 185m2 and type, suburban standalone on generous section, sustainable in the first place?

The trend in NZ, Australia and US over the last 25 years has been towards a general obesity of home size. A super sizing not dissimilar to the fast food products made famous in the documentary of the same name. Do we need to be building large or do we need to put our homes on a diet to achieve the first principle in sustainability – economy. We need to be thinking smart, not necessarily big.

The innovation the Besthome project provides is then not in product but in process – when it comes to gaining a building consent, the ‘green tape’  route proposed rather than red tape is a welcome relief for anyone requiring a building consent .

The Hovarth model is been further tested in partnership with the council on the site of the former HDC Nursery on Fitzroy Street in Hastings which is being touted as a model medium density development. It will be interesting to see what a higher density model will mean for the Best home.

It seems the new green is really the old green with some marketing speak around it but not a lot of design. Perhaps the development of green building should be left to the experts and the market to sort out. Best practice examples and data are a mouse click away, no point reinventing the wheel.

Best practice for an Eco house in Hawke’s Bay

• Each project is site dependent;
• Be design lead so key sustainable principles can be incorporated at the front end.
• Be aligned with principles of passive solar design outlined above.
• Provide rainwater harvesting and storage capacity;
• Use a grey water recycling system;
• Generate power via photovoltaic or wind, with ability to feed back to grid;
• Heat hot water via solar roof top installation
• Be built to an efficient module that doesn’t create excessive waste;
• Be flexible in use to accommodate variable patterns of occupation over time;
• Use local sustainably-forested timber;
• Have the capacity to collect and monitor environmental and energy use data; 
• Use 21^st century technology where it can, including off-site fabrication technology.
• Be of a size and form related to comfort, efficiency and economics. 

From the various eco strategies available the simplest and most cost effective measures  are the ones that align with a ‘passive solar” strategy as outlined above. There is no additional cost to orientating a building to the sun very little cost in additional insulation. It is eco through design and careful consideration at the front end. It is the hard engineering technology where additional cost lies. If the project is designed correctly in the first place then eco technology can be aligned to a customized upgrade program as capital becomes available.

The ratio of capital cost to payback in energy savings and carbon reduction is where the feasibility lies. Obviously the paybacks get greater as energy costs increase and the initial capital costs required decline..

The good news is a global push towards future proofing against energy cost spikes in a post peak oil world is driving research and consumer demand for greener buildings as well as cars. The  trickle down has already started.

Photovoltaics have experienced massive efficiencies in generation capacity as well as cost cutting as a result of manufacturing efficiencies and technology. Payback times are decreasing rapidly. The future in this sense is the capacity of every house to be a micro generator feeding the grid. For the bay a golden opportunity. Subsidies via tax rebates and low interest loans have been useful ways to stimulate the market elsewhere and could be replicated here.

Kiwibank have made moves in this direction by offering Sustainable Energy Loans  as a top up to Home Loans where they will contribute $4000 dollars over 4 years towards cost of a system. Home insulation Funding has been available through EECA up to $1300 for some time and has been widely used.

Straw bales and mud bricks?

Eco-building has been talked about at least since the 60’s when the hippies brought ideas into popular cultures with long beards and diy muddy fingers. Current developments are an outgrowth of that culture of growing environmental awareness. The market perception is still mindful that eco equals hippy dippy but its not actually like that. There are some great examples of the more traditional methods of eco building like strawbales and mudbricks for custom and individual projects but the opportunity we need to consider is the wider housing market and the greening of our housing stock and building industry more generally.

Technology continues to accelerate our understanding of the possibilities, in terms of energy conservation, manufacturing and globalization, but we have yet to download the full value of that knowledge into our home building culture. As the traditional suburban standalone house becomes less a sustainable dream, building our housing on smaller more affordable lots, closer to community infrastructure, transportation and places of business, is the trend we need to be most conscious of … a trend that can create inherently more sustainable housing infrastructure in our cities without installing one mud brick or solar panel. To be successful it needs to be design lead.

Outside of the economic benefits gained by individual home owners the benefit of stimulating the “green economy” which is widely considered to be the next tech induced economic boom is where NZ inc and Hawkes Bay needs to be investing, one roof top at a time. There is a massive market out there looking for innovation no reason why the Bay couldn’t have a piece of that pie. 

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Hasting Street Napier Post 1931 earthquake

Published in  Bay Buzz December Issue No 11 Dec/ Jan 2012-13

Three words have been rolling off the tongues of various building officials, building owners, engineers, insurance agents and developers of late …  “Earthquake prone building.”

These three words have usurped the previously feared monster of “leaky building” to take the throne of most thorny built-environment issue. That is, if you consider housing supply to be an economic issue, retail to be a marketing issue and sustainability to be just too ‘last century’ to even warrant discussion.

If you take a holistic view it is easy to see the connections and see that the building industry and the built environment is going through some growing pains; hopefully on its way to becoming a lot more mature, productive and sustainable as a result. Read the Productivity Commission report on the sector and it’s even more apparent. The capacity for the sector to deliver innovation across the board is in question. Leaky buildings, skill shortages, poor planning for growth, developers struggling to solicit capital post-GFC, materials monopolies, architects struggling to retain relevance – it all adds up to a pretty grim picture.

Of course the promise of a rebuild in Christchurch and latent demand in Auckland jump starting another boom cycle keeps things positive, as do a few aspirational public projects spotted through the dust and debris post earthquake and GFC. Whyndam quarter in AKL, the urban planning and ongoing temporary and pop up events in Christchurch, AKL art gallery extension, for example. It is only when threats are directed at personal safety, capital investments and forced spending that ears start flapping and mouths gibbering.

EQPB is nothing new to those working in the industry. It has been around at least since 2004 when the Building Act handed the mantle to territorial authorities to have a policy on dangerous, unsanitary and earthquake prone buildings in place within eighteen months.

In reality the issue has been around for a lot longer. Architects and engineers have been well aware of the threats posed by un-reinforced masonry buildings and liquefaction for a long time. The 1989 Loma Preita Earthquake in San Francisco is a case in point. Incidently, the large stock of multi-story NZ timber-framed townhouses in that city survived the event unscathed. It is a shame it has taken an event like Christchurch to turn up the heat on both urban design and earthquake safety in this country.

Post Christchurch, with large-scale destruction of a good percentage of older commercial building stock in the CBD, the majority un-reinforced masonry, the Earth Quake Prone Building issue has bubbled to the surface like liquefaction itself. Along with increased insurance costs, renewed demand for newer, safer building stock, and process hiccups, confusion has reigned.

The Earthquake Royal Commission post Christchurch has been charged with independent investigation of the Christchurch event including implications to national policy regards EQPB and the Building Act 2004. Mapping a strategy for creating safe buildings and urban environments based on knowledge gained via Christchurch so that territorial authorities, the public and building owners have confidence moving forward is no easy task. The strategy addresses some key points:

·      What is the baseline for structural safety measured as a percentage of the current building code?

·      Who is going to pay for potential upgrade work?

·      What is the timeframe for any upgrade work to be carried out?

This is obviously of greater significance to those areas straddling shifty plate tectonics with significant collections of older commercial structures – Wellington, Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, Canterbury – and of less interest to those in the Northern regions where seismicity is not so much an issue as ‘affordable-city’.

Alleviating risk

To a certain degree Christchurch has reinforced what we already knew. Un-reinforced masonry, parapets and ornamentation not tied back to a main structure, ‘pounding’ from neighbouring buildings shaking at disparate speeds due to disparate mass and construction technology, building on fill or old river riverbeds – all make for significant danger. Part of the complexity of the issue is that private ownership creates potentially public danger.

The Earthquake Prone Building issue in singular terms is about safety and saving lives. It is attempting to address – based on best practice and best outcomes – how a building built prior to 1976 using the knowledge and technology of the time measures up against the current building standards. If it is deficient what are the options for alleviating risk – retrofit or demolition?

A building is considered earthquake prone if it assessed to be less than 34% of the existing build code. The assessment is based on building age, type of construction, regional seismology and localized geotechnics and performance of structure under a moderate event. It does not apply to residential buildings.

Post Christchurch, owners already stung by increased insurance and building costs, caught in the midst of a slow economy, and threatened with the possibility of structural upgrade work to a unconfirmed target percentage of todays building code, have reacted cautiously.

In this climate, with little clarity in a market suddenly looking for certainty and safety, investors are rightly nervous. Some organizations, risk and cost adverse, have had no choice but to seek safer (read: newer) digs. When employees’ lives and the continuation of business through an event are at risk, then it makes complete sense. Unions tend to agree.

What does this mean to Hawke’s Bay?

We live in a highly active earthquake zone with urban settlement on large areas of land with a high liquefaction risk, both in Hastings and Napier. Heritage is both an economic generator and part of the city identity, more so in Napier than Hastings. Both councils have earthquake prone policy in place.

Hastings since 2006 has been progressing a “policy which actively seeks to identify buildings that are potentially earthquake-prone and allocate them a suitable priority, in order to take appropriate action to ensure they are made safe in reasonable time frames.” Words cloaked with good intention but perhaps no clear outcome. Going above the call of duty there is even an inventory of those currently ‘stickered’ online via HDC’s website, as well as those potentially stickered. The means of ascertaining earthquake proneness has been via a council-contracted desktop review of known information. Any owner can contest the outcome at their own cost.

The Hastings policy is under review as part of a 5-year review cycle, timely given the Earthquake Royal Commission feedback and the district plan review.

 Napier has been actively engaging with the issue also, revamping its policy this past May. It is clear about what, when and who. The onus is on the building owner:

“…every owner of a building of 2 or more stories or single storey buildings with an eave height greater than 4 metres and are classified as a Place of Assembly as defined by the City of Napier District Plan constructed prior to 1976, with the exception of private single detached dwellings, is required to submit a written assessment of the earthquake proneness of their building to the Napier City Council.

The assessment must be undertaken and certified by a Chartered Professional Engineer (Structural). This assessment is to be completed within 12 months of this policy becoming operative. 

The cost of the assessment of the earthquake proneness of the building will be met in full by the building owner.

If an assessment report is not submitted within this 12 month period the building will be deemed to be earthquake prone.”

Needless to say, engineers in the Bay have been very busy and building owners concerned. Architects have been relatively quiet on the issue locally, but the National Institute (NZIA) has a clear policy on heritage and has been actively contributing to discussion.

Realizing the threat to the Art Deco Capital, the Art Deco Trust has positively and proactively organized and engaged with experts and the public.

The Earthquake Commission steps in

Thankfully, the Earthquake Royal Commission has finally delivered it findings in a report – Volume 4 of the Canterbury Earthquake Royal Commission Report – with a total of 36 recommendations. Concurrently, the Department of Buildings through the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has released its own change proposals for consultation. Its document is titled Building Seismic Performance Proposals to improve the New Zealand earthquake-prone building system.

Some certainty is beginning to appear, bearing in mind that in an election year no government is going to drop a bomb of excessive cost-generating policy on their constituents. The government has taken on board many of the Commission’s recommendations, but has chosen longer timeframes and lower minimum standards for strengthening.

Key recommendations of the consultation document include:

• There is no immediate pressure on building owners to upgrade to anything more than the existing 33% of current code – “there is no justification to set the shaking level to be resisted for earthquake-prone structures at greater than one third of the requirements for a new building.”  
• Interestingly, Christchurch has already adopted requirements for buildings to be 67% of code and the ERC made the recommendation that buildings should be strengthened to 50% of code.
•  Un-reinforced masonry buildings rightly get targeted as a real risk – “The external walls of all UMBs should be supported by retrofit including in areas of low seismicity” – which makes retrofit a national issue not just localized to high risk areas.
• All falling hazards, parapets, ornamentation and the like will need to meet 50% of current code requirements or be removed.
• There is, however, a clear time stamp put on proceedings, with local authorities given two years to complete assessment of all UMBs and five years for all other buildings. Any resultant upgrade work will have to be completed within seven years for UMB and 15 years for others. Which means by about 2030 we can stop worrying about been crushed by falling brickwork.
• A register of all earthquake prone buildings would have to be made public within 5 years of any law change.

Local government and the free market have been shoulder tapped as the drivers for change. However, the free market and built heritage have had a terrible record over the years. Think 1980s Auckland.

Heritage buildings tell a local story but also a New Zealand story. As a region and nation we have to decide how important built heritage is bottom-line – we need some rationalization of what is valuable from a heritage point of view, from a national perspective, and some system of financial aid must be devised.

There are some clear and present threats to heritage in all this. For example, there seems to be some transfer of power from the NZ Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) to local authorities. Without the necessity to consult with the NZHPT on protected buildings, councils and developers would have carte blanch.

Although some high-level estimates have been put against the cost of upgrade, with 25,000 buildings and $1.68 billion bandied about, there is no actual accounting for the economic value heritage might create in a community, nor the stimulation to the economy brought about by the upgrade work. Whatever the final revisions to the Building Act, it is inevitable that some built heritage will be lost. When bean counters become the sole progenitor of urban development we need be worried especially so if property value is cynically calculated as value of land less cost of demolition.

Alternative financial approaches are not hard to find.

In San Francisco, the Mills Act is the single most important economic incentive in California for historic preservation. Property taxes are reduced – sometimes by 50% or more – in exchange for a ten-year commitment by the owner to make specific improvements to their building. There are many more examples from around the world for funding structures that support the retention of heritage. It is best to think of it as a positive opportunity to not only create more attractive, but also safer and more resilient and useful urban spaces, buildings, cultural stories and cities.

Thinking this broadly, we need to understand that heritage can be a value-adding proposition that can sit alongside new development – Napier City, case in point. That an adaptive reuse of an existing building can incorporate structural upgrades as well as environmental upgrades. That reuse of existing structure in the long-term is a far more sustainable, resource-conserving, low carbon path. Rightful consideration also needs to be given to the cultural story that the built heritage tells.

Salvation Army building Hastings 1929,  Heritage demolished citing cost of retrofit

The opportunities

I imagine the report will elicit same old free market vs. protection naysayers debate. Property Council chief executive Connal Townsend has described proposed new standards as “hugely radical”. Whatever the final outcomes, there are important opportunities to consider:

• To redefine the cultural and economic value of heritage buildings nationally. Will a photograph suffice or do we need the real thing?

• To explore innovative ways of structural retrofit, both in terms of physical works, funding strategies and financial incentives.

• To piggyback energy upgrades and other ‘green’ initiatives on structural upgrade works.

• To take the opportunity to reconsider the traditional CBD function in a 21^st Century environment.

• To put people in employment and in training to have the required skills to complete the work and grow the economy.

• To plan for future urban growth and open space in a holistic proactive manner.

• To investigate design opportunities as well as engineering outcomes, and to advance research and innovation in the sector.

Wellington City Council, realizing the potential, both positive and negative, of the issue, has investigated the prospect of financing through low interest loans that are tagged to a property rather than a owner.

There is potential for local government to bear the cost of upgrade of public facilities of certain age, but in a time of fiscal conservatism this will require, as noted, some creative funding strategies. That said, in the case of pubic buildings there obviously needs to be rigor around safety; if money needs to be spent to save lives then it should be.

The same can be said for urban street spaces – public space put at risk by the actions of private owners whose buildings face them. In Christchurch un-reinforced masonry facades falling into the streets were the killer. The feasibility of groups of buildings carrying out upgrade work – as a way to share the load economically as well as physically – has been investigated. Where you draw the line regarding prioritization of upgrade work, and how big a stick councils get, will be two interesting outcomes of the commission report.

Earlier this year Victoria University students, sponsored by Wellington City Council, worked on a project to investigate the opportunities for an integrated approach to dealing with the earthquake prone building issue. They chose Cuba Street mall as the focus of their study working as a group to develop synergies between engineering and architectural solutions as well as between neighbours. They developed concepts reliant on whole block solutions rather than independent building solutions.

As well as showcasing the potential of collaboration and fresh talent, the project highlighted a valuable idea, the city is a collective entity. The individual elements contribute to a whole greater than its individual parts and petty politics. It’s an idea that has inspired cultures for thousands of years and forms the basis for a civil and democratic society. NIMBYism becomes ‘Working together for the greater good-ism’.