Tuesday 22nd November 2022
At 4:30pm
Online via zoom
Attendance:
Solutions Team: Barbara Dillon
Christchurch City Council: Wayne Roden, Leslie Frost, Ana Morales, Katharine Riley, Peter van der Zee, Terry Sparks, Heath Wells,
Ashburton District Council: Katherine Bolton, Robert Tito
New Zealand Building Training and Compliance: Lisa Jenkin
ComplyNZ: Mathew Constable
Consent P & I Services Ltd: Phillip Bone
Kainga Ora: Jenny Lilley
Auckland Council: Jeff Fahrensohn
MBIE: Jon King, Jennifer Clark
Waimakariri District Council: Brenda McIndoe
Marlborough District Council: Dhyanom Gala
Welcome: Liz Ashwin opens the meeting by welcoming everyone attending.
Apologies:
Neil Donnellan
Glenn Barlow
Minutes and Matters Arising:
No matters arose from the previous meeting minutes.
Correspondence in/out:
Membership cards are being sent out
Conference registrations are opening soon. Be sure to register as soon as you can to secure the extra early bird prices.
Guest Presentation: Guy Marriage
Guy Marriage is an Architect teaching construction at the School of Architecture, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Guy also works with First Light Studio in Wellington, an award-winning NZIA practice focused on bringing the best living solutions to our housing problems.
His first book, Tall - the Design and Construction of High-Rise Architecture, has almost sold out and is highly prized around the world as a seminal textbook for students of architecture and construction alike. His second book Modern Apartment Design is focused on the growing interest in constructing tall timber buildings for residential living.
This third book, Medium, is aimed to help solve the design and construction problems of medium density housing, occurring right now in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Guy has published over 70 papers and articles in NZ and overseas, including the cheerful and upbeat chapter "The Architecture of Death" in Death and Dying.
For a copy of the presentation slides, please click here
What is medium density housing? The definition of MDC is interestingly not commonly agreed upon. Guy expands by pointing out PNCC say “any developments higher than three storeys are not considered medium density housing and therefore not covered...”. BRANZ define medium density housing as “multi-unit housing up to six storeys high”. BRANZ then divides MDH into three categories. Category one is “1-2 storey attached houses, such as duplexes or semi-attached townhouses”. Category two is “2-4 storey attached houses such as terraced housing”. The third category is 3-6 storey apartments.
Guy says categories one and two are low to medium density housing rather than definitively medium density housing.
Who is permitted to design/build MDH?
Individual stand-alone houses (up to 10m tall) require an LBP with design class 2 or 3. A registered architect can also engage in designing MDH.
Residential buildings under 10m are considered restricted building work and require LBPs to both design and building. The building act however says buildings over 10m high are not restricted building work.
Guy argues all MDH developments should require only experienced registered architects or LBP with design class 3 to undertake the design of MDH, furthermore all MDH construction work should be classified as restricted building work. Guy says BOINZ should insist on this.
Design factors of MDH
At what point does a building require lifts? If you are four storeys and above, you will require a lift.
In terms of fire safety ratings, you should have an urban design report.
Building material factors also come into play here as well. It is possible to use CLT to build high MDH but insitu and precast concrete are recommended. Acoustic issues may arise from using CLT though these issues are manageable.
Walk scores of the development are also something to consider.
Access routes either internally and externally can be an interesting design choice and can impact design choices.
Services from the bathroom to be run through the back of cupboards into the services riser or under a raised floor into the services riser. Avoid services running through the ceiling of the below residence.
Balconies are necessary according to Guy though we are seeing MDH design and built without them. Guy argues BCOs should insist on balconies in MDH. There are designs such as fully recessed, fully projecting and alternating, and balustrade balconies which can conquer any design arguments against them.
Better MDH consenting by:
- Insist on quality, experienced architects.
- Reject plans by designers at only LBP DC 1or DC 2.
- Set up means of quickly approving alternative solutions – as most acceptable solutions. may not apply. Make the process for alternative solutions simple and transparent.
- Be careful the R.F.I – Don’t sit on it for ages and then issue multiple RFIs at the last minute.
- Don’t issue RFI just because you must reach a target number of queries.
Q&A
Q: Any considerations for accessibilities?
A: That is one of the key things we need to think about. This has been covered by the Auckland Design Manual and Kainga Ora Guidelines.
Q: If we see designs that are poorly done, but we can’t reject them because they are compliant with the Building Code, what advice would you give to these designers?
A: Building Officials will have to find a way to talk about this. I used to work for Wellington City Council, and I used to deal with designers who did the bear minimum for urban design, and I would go back to them and tell them to do better. You must refuse the bad designs!
Q: Will there be further editions of “Medium”?
A: Yes, it is available on our website.
Q: what are your thoughts on how MDH can be used to develop affordable housing when developers always put affordability aside and charge top dollar.
A: When we talked about writing the books at the start, it was mentioned we need to discuss more affordable and cheap housing. Affordable and cheap is not the same. They may be able to be the same thing, which is what I am studying now. In the book there are ways to do better, not cheaper but that is something I want to do in the future.
Q: With the increase in development, have you got any data from overseas which we can use to estimate where we might be in 10 years’ time?
A: NZ is a sparsely settled country, very few live in the countryside. Only 15% of people live in rural areas. The ways other countries have developed is with everyone building a new village one horse ride away from the next. Our cities are further apart. China has gone from almost everyone living in the countryside to cities. I am sure we will continue building MDH, we don’t want housing which becomes slums in 10 years’ time. We need to build houses people like living in.
End of meeting at 5:30pm
