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Welcome back to the Design Principles Podcast. I'm Sam Brown from Arret Architects and I'm here today with Ben Sutherland from Bear Architecture and Gerard Dombrowski from Gerard Dombrowski Workshop. Welcome back, boys, thank you. This week we've decided that we're going to discuss and tackle the subject of high-performance architecture. Quite often I've found that this is confused or the term sustainability is bandied around in the profession pretty readily, with not a lot of understanding of what sustainable means, and I often find that sustainable can be a little bit of a short-sightedness in terms of the building industry. So I like to use the term. I like to think of things that are of that ilk more as high-performance architecture.
Sam Brown:One of the reasons that I wanted to start this conversation today is that in two weeks time, the New Zealand Green Building Council will be holding a housing summit up in Auckland at the Aotea Centre on the 22nd of May Get tickets when they'll be discussing high performance architecture, particularly in the housing realm, with a strong focus on medium-density housing, and it's just a very topical thing in the market at the moment and something that I think we should definitely discuss.
Sam Brown:So before we crack into things, I just want to start you off with a little bit of a description. This was outlined by Archipro as to what high performance is, they say there are many design, building, building and material choices available for making a home in an energy efficient, high performer. They all, however, aim to contribute to at least one of four key performance characteristics. So that's worth keeping in mind throughout the discussion Insulation, ventilation, solar gain and heating. But personally I find that only part of the story and I think the more that we delve into it, things like embodied carbon, water usage etc. Become just as an important part of the fabric and framework of high performance architecture. So to crack things off, ben gerard, what's your, what's your sort of take in this realm and what experience have you had in it?
Gerard Dombroski:Quickly is this a performance conversation or is it a sustainability conversation? Can we run over that link again?
Sam Brown:Yeah, so I think the confusion around a lot of the built environment is people use the term sustainability a lot to try and cover a lot of things. The building industry and construction in general is inherently unsustainable, regardless of how green your building may be. So I think sustainability personally is the wrong term, which is why I like to use or think of it as high performance instead, because regardless of what you're building, it's unsustainableable. But if you do it in a high performance manner that takes sustainability into consideration, it's far more appropriate and acceptable term to use I'm glad you called it high performance architecture.
Ben Sutherland:Actually I was going to call you out on it. If you call it sustainability nice, it's just far too broad, you know it's far too broad.
Sam Brown:It's far too broad and it's far too misdirected. I think yeah, particularly nowadays.
Gerard Dombroski:So are we saying we're not looking for sustainability and we're just looking for performance or what's because, like the green building council kind of comes with the association of saving the planet, et cetera, et cetera. For sure.
Sam Brown:So sustainability is definitely an aspect of it and through all of these discussions, you're considering sustainability as a base thought, such as embodied carbon, energy usage material, all of that sort of stuff. So obviously, if you're making sustainable decisions within those realms, that's a positive. But I don't like the term sustainable architecture or sustainable building because inherently, building isn't sustainable. You think 40% of our emissions are either used up in the construction or maintenance of buildings. So the only way to truly be sustainable or to practice truly sustainable architecture is to not do any, and then none of us would have a job live in caves yeah, so I mean I think sustainability is definitely.
Sam Brown:It's a buzzword, it's definitely a focus, but I think it's just the wrong term um within this realm yeah, it's incredibly vague yeah, but then it's like the, because there's all these metrics that are out and they're all incredibly misleading.
Gerard Dombroski:So, like the, the performance side of things, are we? It's like a car analogy, are we? Are we now now talking about a certain spec of performance? So now we're talking about Porsches and things, or are we talking about Corollas as well?
Sam Brown:I think that's where the discussion can start. Why not? And you're right, Gerard.
Gerard Dombroski:I'm just trying to bring it into a lens that everyone can associate.
Sam Brown:Yeah, for sure.
Gerard Dombroski:Otherwise, only people that know exactly what high performance building are going to know what this chat's about for sure what?
Sam Brown:what I see, well, what high performance is currently within the market is something that is performing to the level that it needs to be for us to meet climate goals, for us to be living in healthy homes, to reduce respiratory illnesses in children, all of that sort of stuff. High performance is the term that's given to that, because it's higher performing sorry to sort of use that term again than standard code or something that's generic. At the moment, I think a lot of that high performance architecture is seen as to use your car analogy, you know the mercedes or the bmw version of housing, particularly in housing for commercial. It's starting to become a little bit more adopted across the board. But ultimately what the goal is is that those bmws and those porsches become toyota corollas, to continue that car analogy in the sense that high performance. It may be high performance now, but it needs to and should become just the standard.
Ben Sutherland:Well, do you want to kick us off with an example and tell us and we can try and break it down as to a better understanding of what makes it high performing, I guess might be helpful.
Sam Brown:Yeah, totally so. Actually very recently, fletcher Living and it's really cool to see an enormous player in the construction market in New Zealand and Fletcher's sort of championing this change just completed the first 10, or not the first, it's the third, I actually think 10 Homestar home in auckland. So 10 homestar is basically the pinnacle of high performance housing that you can achieve under a new zealand metric, and we'll get into alternative metrics for assessing quality a bit later. But what that house means is it has um, like a low embodied carbon metric to it and I don't have the numbers in front of me, but go check it out if you want to know it in a bit more detail.
Sam Brown:It's airtight. It requires very little heating and or cooling in summer and winter to stay at a median temperature of 20 to 21 degrees internally. The construction methodology means that there's no moisture issues, condensation et cetera. The materiality that's used is generally all locally sourced. It's 90% of the waste from the project was diverted from landfill, so a lot of it's been recycled or reused. Those are just some of the metrics that are used to determine what is high performance at the moment, but ultimately what the goal is is that all of those things just become the norm.
Ben Sutherland:Right. So it achieves in both embodied in the embodied realm as well as the operational realm. So it's about what? It's as much about the construction methodology, how it's put together, where the materials come from, what materials, what variety of materials they're using to lower that impact Exactly, as well as the operational costs, which are your reduction in energy consumption, your perhaps better ventilation, whether that be passive or mechanical yep so it's just a combination of yeah, the embodied and the operational to create like a a more superior built structure yeah, it's a more and it's not necessarily more superior built structure.
Sam Brown:It's a more superior built structure, it's a more superior built environment and there's lots. I mean, like I didn't want to say a high-performing piece of architecture. I mean we're touching the tip of the iceberg here. There's so many things that contribute to the scale of the building as one of them, I think.
Sam Brown:You know, building a 300 to 400-plus square metre home is inherently unsustainable and it's going to be very difficult to heat and cool that and the material that's going to go into it is going to be very high, etc.
Sam Brown:Etc. So reducing scale to a more efficient standard is is a big one and to kind of come back but to kind of come back to that car analogy I think you can't get confused with high performance being like super high spec. For instance, you know, like a five million dollar mansion on the hills in wellington or something isn't necessarily going to be high performance because it may have very, very high quality materials, very high quality of finish, a very high architectural merit, but the actual performance of that home could be really poor. You know my two thousand plus dollar heating bills per month. You know the material may have been shipped. You know they might have used non-native timber oh sorry, non-fsc timber hardwoods for the decking or something and shipped the windows all in from Germany. All these little things contribute to lowering that level of high performance, not necessarily high quality.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, I think the confusion comes in when you get that mansion that is accredited to these Homestar or whatever, because you can ultimately pull off a large building that would tick some of the boxes.
Sam Brown:You totally can and we're doing it. Our practice is currently doing it in Wellington. We've got a client, rob Seymour, who's building a large home on the hills difficult site in Wellington and it's an incredibly high performance home. It's, you know, achieved at its last. It's a very complex envelope and it was our aim to sort of achieve a high home star standard or close or and use passive house principles, but without really targeting those actual certifications. And we're achieving it and it's you know. So you can do it at that higher level. What I'm just saying is it's less common because generally the focus with projects of that scale is more on aesthetic and I don't know, just having nice travertine, tiles or something, rather than actually considering what your interior temperature is all year round without having insane power bills.
Gerard Dombroski:Love me some travertine, beautiful stone. So I guess, for anybody confused or not overly familiar with the term high performance, it is kind of the next gen of the sustainable conversation, isn't it?
Sam Brown:yeah, and I think it's the more targeted, more accurately targeted. Uh.
Gerard Dombroski:Iteration of the sustainability chat yeah, so we are searching for low carbon, low running costs, low embodied busy faucets, yeah like low water usage, low energy usage and a lot of these houses and commercial properties as well.
Sam Brown:There's the Scion Centre in Roto-Rua. I think it has a six Green Star rating off off the top of my head, which is like the highest level of certification that you can get in new zealand. It's just recently won an international award for like an environmental building award and that basically is like a net zero building, so it generates all its own power, it recirculates and reticulates and cleans its own water, all those sort of things you know. So what we're looking at is buildings that, where possible, don't have a negative impact on the environment in which they inhabit and also the environment which they draw from. So, particularly somewhere like New Zealand where we have limited access to power and we want to maintain this clean green image, I think it's pretty important that we're sort of striving to create buildings that mimic that nationwide mantra as well so that's like using renewable resources like timber as much as possible.
Ben Sutherland:So how, what are some some ways that the techniques they're using to achieve that?
Sam Brown:Lots of companies are kind of taking on different approaches. So we actually just had a rep from Autex come and chat to us recently, and what they're doing now is they're taking all of this. So Autex are acoustic panel suppliers for those not in the know and they're taking a lot of their material from off cuts, from build sites where it's not used, um second life material, what have you? And then recycling it and repurposing it into new products okay, so they've just recently released.
Sam Brown:I don't have the sample with me, but like a new acoustic panel, that's purely recycled material. Um, so what they're looking at is second life, third life, fourth life material, and a good example of that is polystyrene. If you said polystyrene and sustainability, you wouldn't necessarily think that the two run in the same conversation. But it's a completely inert product once it's manufactured and it has an almost like infinite recycle life cycle. You know. So, for instance, if you're using rigid insulation in your underfloor expo for, for example, any of those offcuts that you don't use on site, you can get back to them. They'll repurpose and put back into product, and it slowly, because all products slowly degrade after each life cycle use. But they're continually finding new methods for recycling and reusing them. So those are just a couple of examples.
Ben Sutherland:We, for instance oh sorry, karen- Just with that polystyrene, what's the threshold between, like having it last a long period of time versus something that doesn't cost a lot environmentally to manufacture in the first place?
Sam Brown:I think it's a balance right. Concrete, for instance, is similar High embodied carbon in manufacturing but will last forever and also can be as highly recyclable. So there's no magic wand, there's no golden answer. I think for those that are interested it's worth just doing your research when it comes to product specification and product use because, depending on what you're wanting to use, it's good to have a narrative around why you're using it from that perspective as well.
Sam Brown:Second life materials, like they're sort of a no-brainer, particularly stuff where the there's low, there's low manufacturing in the second stage. So, for instance, we specify a lot of reclaimed eucalypt cladding which comes out of australia. It's made from beams, railway sleepers, telephone poles, stuff that's pulled out of old construction. All it's done is it's milled, so there's not a lot of cost in that. And then it's a. It's a class 1a timber, so it's 40 year out of ground warranty, untreated, so as a cladding it's like bomb proof and so and that's a second life material, so there's very little cost goes into that and it will last forever. So that's a good example and all that takes is a little bit of digging and a little bit of curiosity around why you should use a product rather than just saying I use it because I use it interesting.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, I was going to bring this up later on, but so mbi next year is bringing out carbon counting.
Ben Sutherland:So basically, starting 2025, it's going to be mandatory for new buildings emphasis on the new to report on their whole of life and body carbon.
Ben Sutherland:So basically, I'm not sure how they're going to do it yet. Perhaps with the help of brands or some someone along those lines, but essentially we're going to do it yet, perhaps with the help of brands or someone along those lines, but essentially we're going to have to start calculating the embodied carbon within our materials that we're specifying. That's going to be quite interesting because I would imagine you know, like we were saying before about polystyrene having such a high embodied carbon, because it takes a lot to manufacture. However, I believe the way that they're going to get around, that is, with the calculations, you can actually adjust the lifespan calculation. So typically, with the building code at the moment, you can't go under that 50-year lifespan, but being able to calculate for a longer lifespan will definitely help a lot of those materials like polystyrene and that sort of thing. However, if you're going to calculate for a longer lifespan, I think that you also have to bring all the materials up to that level to be able to.
Sam Brown:For sure, and that lifespan's a really interesting one, right? So currently building code allows for, well, requires buildings to last for a minimum of 50 years, but so often products are marketed at or developed for that 50 year minimum lifespan only, so essentially, after 50 years it all just turns to shit and in a lot of cases, you know, for instance, claddings, a lot of claddings, it's only a 15 year warranty and things like that.
Sam Brown:so what ultimately would be lovely is if everything brought itself up. So, instead of us designing for a home that lasts 50 years which for us as young architects is pretty sad to know that by the end of our lifespan half our buildings might have been demoed or had to be demoed or fallen down we start designing to 100 years or something along those lines. And if you think about, like a to-code home or a built to-code home that dreaded term think about what's gone into that. You've got H1 treated timber. That's life spans 50 years. Is it recyclable? No, you know. You've got wool insulation or not wool insulation, sorry, you've got like pink bat insulation. Is that recyclable? How long does it last? 50 years, is it recyclable? No, you know there's so many materials that go into these sort of standard construction type homes that don't have second life costs, that aren't recyclable and only last 50 years. So actually the embodied carbon, although up front might not be really high for these products, over the course of a lifetime they could be, which is an interesting thing to think about.
Ben Sutherland:No, absolutely. I guess that emphasises the importance of actually reusing existing shelves or renovations, how important that's probably going to be in the future because essentially, if you can renovate something, significantly less impact than actually tearing it down, even if you're recycling as much material as possible and rebuilding, renovations are likely to be superior.
Sam Brown:That comes back to that statement that I made that really the only way to be truly sustainable in construction is to not build, and I mean that's not a reality for any of us, or anybody really. But reuse and recycling is a reality and is a huge industry that I think needs to be tapped into a little bit more. And beyond, housing, like renovating houses, is very commonplace. You know classic DIY Kiwi mentality around that. But from a commercial perspective, I think there's so much more scope for reuse and recyclability than we're currently investigating or undertaking.
Gerard Dombroski:Have you guys heard of the Humanize campaign by Thomas Heatherwick?
Sam Brown:Yeah, I think have you mentioned it on this pod before?
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, I've mentioned it before but reuse is like a massive part of the argument, I guess. So I think in the UK they have pretty big issue with demolishing commercial buildings. Like the lifespans I forget off memory, but roughly like 20 years or something. So they'll build a building. Nobody wants it, so they demolish it and then rebuild a whole, nother commercial building. So his argument is that they're all just extremely simple glass clad, tower blocks sort of thing. There's no perceived value in them, so they're simpler to just demolish and rebuild, whereas more complex, more beautiful old buildings want to get reused. So maybe that's why villas and stuff yeah, there's heritage on pre-1930s or whatever but people want to reuse villas because they have a charm and a beauty about them. But yeah, it might be tricky when it comes to renovating a more standard spec home.
Sam Brown:That's actually a really interesting point, Gerard. And again, a big thing for us on this podcast is advocating for architecture. Right, and that's what you just said is a perfect sort of framework for that. If you're designing or if you've got a home that's the same as 20 other people in your neighborhood or a thousand other people in the country, where's the sort of like sense of place, Where's that like individuality, Where's that ownership and where's that desire to make this thing last forever when it's just it's so run of the mill? You know, there's something to be said for quality, not necessarily exclusivity, but sort of individuality and the desire to keep that maintained throughout history.
Sam Brown:And sort of it'd be pretty cool if you know. If you know, if every, if everything was architecturally designed, if everything was bespoke, then we're obviously going to have so much more care and want to hold on to it for so much longer.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah. They're definitely more likely to renovate and renew as opposed to. I can imagine a lot of those spec homes are going to be torn down just to make way for the same thing, but new basically. More gentrification, that's another.
Gerard Dombroski:Sure, a lot of demolition going on. Demolition is kind of going backwards on the high performance route, sustainable route, absolutely man demolition.
Ben Sutherland:Someone needs to sort out the recycling in this country.
Sam Brown:It's horrendous the recycling thing is interesting. I know Auckland had Green Gorilla, I don't know what the status of that is, after the big fire recently. Um, but like wellington for instance, it's very wood waste it's very place dependent, but wellington isn't.
Sam Brown:But, like across the board, for site material recycling is not great. We've got a site down in queenstown, uh, which is like, uh, we trying, it's trying to be net zero waste. It's nigh on impossible because you're still going to get some unrecyclable plastics and things out of packaging, but we're as close to it as possible. We demolished a house and we're building an old asbestos ridden house and we're building two new homes down there. The entire home, bar the asbestos, has either been reused or recycled, which is pretty cool, and then all of the waste from site is being diverted to recycling where possible. So plastics, whether or not soft plastics, are being um, there's like an outfit down there that turn them into fence posts for for farming. There's like all the gibraltar boards like jib off, cuts, all that's crushed down and turned into gibraltar which is spread over ground to help fertilize it, and all these sort of things. So there's like heaps of different, different initiatives. This is so with the ql how did you find those people?
Ben Sutherland:well, someone needs to compile a list because I I tried to uh, when you know my time at makers, I'd 100 tried to get rid of a lot of the construction offcuts back then. The best we could do was reduce them and reuse them as much as possible, but there was no one taking anything.
Sam Brown:Yeah, I mean I can't claim credit for this. We're working with a contractor down there called Compound, who you know they're really leading the charge in the high performance and sustainable building realm. Um, they're doing an amazing job and that project is a is a homestar project, and so part of that homestar process is we have a waste management system on site, so it's all sort of built into it, but the compound guys are really the ones that have found all those avenues for recycling, um and everything, and it's actually it's all sort of built into it, but the compound guys are really the ones that have found all those avenues for recycling and everything and it's actually pretty easy because it's all just done through the QLDC waste management system.
Sam Brown:So, it's council-driven, which is amazing yeah that's awesome, but not every council has that unfortunately.
Ben Sutherland:That's awesome to hear. Another thing I was trying to do back in the day is call suppliers ahead of time and try and get them to deliver stuff that was unpackaged. No one was keen. It was just too much liability for them.
Sam Brown:Yeah, interesting.
Ben Sutherland:Because in case anything turned up dinged or damaged, then obviously they have to cover that expense. So they weren't keen. The whole material thing is quite interesting because, going back to that carbon counting, essentially a lot of it is to start to create awareness or exposure of how these materials that we're using in these buildings are manufactured and try and force a lot of these manufacturers to improve their systems and clean up their processes. So, like you were saying before, with the timber coming from old milled poles, it just needs to be as clean and efficient as possible. And that's what's kind of happening. It's like, basically, you're getting what is it? An EPD? Yeah, basically an environmental product declaration that the suppliers or the manufacturers have to start to put on their materials and that's how the carbon is tracked through the purchasing of the product. So soon they're going to probably likely they're going to cap your carbon footprint of your building that you're designing or whatever, and if you're over then, yeah, I'm not sure what happens.
Sam Brown:I guess you have to change your product, or probably have to buy carbon credits, I'd say, and that's yeah that's unfortunately. That's really the only mechanism for not punishing but for sort of holding people accountable at the moment is the purchase of carbon credits.
Ben Sutherland:Well, they could just not let you do it and you could have to supply something else. It could be as simple as that.
Sam Brown:Yeah, the problem with that being is that New Zealand small product market. It would make things very difficult and we're pro development. At the moment there's so much positive development that needs to happen.
Ben Sutherland:We don't want to hand break it all although I think it would definitely force the hand on some of those bigger manufacturers to supply cleaner, greener products totally but even in saying that you, like, you mentioned the EPDs, the Environmental Product Declarations.
Sam Brown:I was aware of them a couple of years ago and every time a product rep would come and talk to us I'd be like, do you have an EPD? And to begin with they were like I'll need to check when I get back to the office type response which we know just as a I have no idea, no, but yeah, you know. I'm never going to say that type. You know, you know what's not going to like. But now you ask them and they're like yep, here it is which is amazing.
Ben Sutherland:Who's checking those EPDs, though? But?
Sam Brown:even that change, even that change in the last 18 months. Two years what that means is a huge shift in understanding and a huge shift in accountability, which is just the start, really, and that's that goes beyond the product, that needs to move into the entire built environment now, and I think that's where things are starting to shift as people are becoming a lot more aware of what they're putting into their buildings and how their buildings are performing, rather than just what their buildings look like.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, definitely yeah, because for a long time there it was really focused on the operational carbon counting which is the everyday day-to-day running of the building, heating and whatnot. So it's so good to see a lot more emphasis being put on the embodied carbon counting, which I think is like significantly important. It's, you know, hugely important, potentially arguably even more important, because this government's no sorry.
Sam Brown:This country's energy systems has like a high percentage of clean energy anyway we're like 90, 92 maybe clean energy, so like, from a new zealand perspective it's a. It's a kind of a different discussion than it is overseas, because so much of it, and this is the same thing when it comes to like, oh, should I put solar on my roof? Kind of yes, kind of vibe but for so long the argument's been like well, what's the point?
Sam Brown:because our energy is clean regardless, but power is expensive. And I'm talking to people down in Queenstown who have passive homes or like Homestar rated homes and one of the people that I've been talking to they haven't paid for power in the last two years and this is living in Queenstown.
Ben Sutherland:They're always in credit through having solar panels and a high performance home.
Sam Brown:Whereas I've talked to, so they've got sorry, they've got solar panels on their house solar panels on their roof, so they're creating, generating enough power to power their home, heat their home, do everything for their home for the entire year.
Sam Brown:So this is through, like the depths of winter and the heats of summer, versus other people that I've talked to down there that have large homes, beautiful large homes overlooking the lake, lots of glass, expensive, you know, amazing architecture, but their power bills are like four grand a month yeah, but obviously there's an upfront cost associated with the solar.
Gerard Dombroski:There's a four grand power bill for a lot of people.
Sam Brown:You'd be surprised, but even like a $600 I run some pretty gnarly power sucking tools in my workshop, but even like a $600 power bill I'd say would be relatively common throughout New Zealand monthly.
Gerard Dombroski:The conversation becomes payback when you're weighing up whether you're going to well, yeah, yeah some batteries, because like let's, let's be frank, there it's not cheap. Like to power your house and then batteries. There's a huge cost.
Sam Brown:Oh, totally and I'm not. I'm not saying that solar is the golden ticket by all means I mean, I've been a solar skeptic for years because for so long the efficiencies of panels have only been about seven years. A lot of the materials are non-recyclable. We haven't had good storing capacity until Tesla came and built Powerwalls which are pretty mint, but they are expensive. They're like $20,000, $15,000 to $20,000. They are expensive.
Sam Brown:They're like 20 grand 15 to 20 grand, but I think what's also often is but this kind of comes back to this whole overarching holistic view on high performance is you can't look at these things in isolation. You can't look at just having solar as a solution. You can't look at just having low embodied carbon products as a solution.
Sam Brown:You need to combine those two things with things like low energy use sorry, low water usage and like airtight homes and things like that, so you're not leaking out a whole bunch of heat and then having to use a shit ton of solar energy to repower it. You know what I mean.
Ben Sutherland:So it's Just touching on that solar just before we move away. One last thing I have to say about it In terms of embodied carbon. Did you know that aluminium has one of the highest levels of embodied carbon, and obviously not to mention the lithium and silicon and that sort of thing, just because of the mining involved in acquiring the product in the first place? So I guess that's like another factor to consider when looking into solar. And not only that. Like you said before, you can't recycle them, so their lifespan is generally only 20 or so years, so then you have to purchase a new one. So not quite there yet.
Sam Brown:My opinion solar is a tricky one and I think that's where it comes back to that and this kind of segues into something that I want to discuss next. But, like solar, it kind of segues back to that sustainability buzzword. You know people like I want my house to be more sustainable.
Sam Brown:I put solar panels on the roof. Well, it's not. It's not quite how it works, and what I want to lead that into is like okay, we've talked about high performance in a lot of these different aspects. Well, what is the metrics or what are the methods that we can use to assess whether something is high performance? And internationally, there's passive house. I'm sure a lot of listeners and you guys have probably heard of passive house. Lots of people may not understand what that means, but it's a colloquial term, right? Everybody knows that passive house means it performs really well thermally.
Ben Sutherland:Question, just jumping in there Passive house. Why is it called passive house when it's literally the opposite of passively designed houses?
Sam Brown:That's a really good question.
Ben Sutherland:I'm like are we pro passively designed houses or are we pro mechanical ventilation?
Sam Brown:Well, we're definitely pro mechanical ventilation, are we yeah?
Ben Sutherland:Oh man, I'm so pro passively designed houses.
Gerard Dombroski:I'm going to go passive. Well, passive works if you have a passive environment designed houses, that well, I'm going to passive.
Sam Brown:well, it's like passive passive works if you have a passive environment and new zealand is anything but a passive environment, you know, but interestingly, like we're a lot more mellow in terms of ups and downs than a lot of the world true, but a lot of like those places are consistent, like try telling me Wellington's consistent.
Ben Sutherland:That's the exception to the rule, though, surely?
Sam Brown:Yeah, that's true.
Ben Sutherland:Auckland's pretty consistent. It just rains randomly every now and then, or every day.
Sam Brown:But cycling back to those metrics. So obviously this Passive House, what Passive House looks at, is the energy use and really focusing on the thermal performance of the home. But it's really that one kind of critical key aspect which I think loses a little bit of sight around. Things like ben, you've talked about embodied carbon, water usage and things. So then the new zealand green building council has developed this new zealand centric model called HomeStar, which is targeted at housing, and then GreenStar, which is targeted at commercial buildings and that looks at the performance of buildings more holistically. So it's taking into consideration all of those passive house things thermal performance, energy performance but also looking at materiality, embodied carbon, water usage scale, proximity to amenities, all those sort of things.
Ben Sutherland:So is Green Star and Homestar. The same thing, just one's commercial, one's residential.
Sam Brown:Like the metrics aren't exactly the same. They're looking at the same. Like they're looking at high performance within the building sector, but like the metrics that they're analysing the same. Like they're looking at high performance within the building sector, but like the metrics that they're analyzing are quite different how do we select one, or do we just have to?
Ben Sutherland:well, if you're doing a, housing project.
Sam Brown:Regardless of the scale, homestar will be applicable. If you're doing a commercial project, then it's a green star. Okay, that green star accreditation is what you'd be looking for, and then also I was gonna say what is an eco home? Then uh, I think it's not necessarily like a, like a, a certifiable metric. I think it's more just like a concept, more than anything else, like what these are.
Ben Sutherland:These are things it's a sustainable house. It's a sustainable house.
Sam Brown:Yeah, but what these? The things that these are? These are things. It's a sustainable house? It's a sustainable house? Yeah, but what these? The things that I'm talking about are things that actually have analysis, certification, assessment are recognised internationally and nationally, rather than just like a sort of a bit more of a well-directed but just a sort of a bit of you know, a directed buzz term. And then there's also neighbors in z, which focuses on the energy efficiency of commercial buildings, which is sort of like that passive house equivalent for buildings, but commercial buildings. And then for anybody, any homeowner, there's home fit assessments. So there's home fit assessors out there and they kind of take a look at existing building stock and new and tell you whether it is sort of suitable enough to live in. And if you're a renter, you've probably heard of it, because landlords were required to bring it up to a certain standard and everything like that.
Sam Brown:So there's a lot of things that are leading in that direction, but I think what the biggest problem at the moment is a lack of understanding around what these things mean and, interestingly, one of the things that I've seen, or an initiative concept that I've seen, that I think would be the best way of bringing this into the public eye and giving people a very quick and easy to understand method of rating buildings as a star rating.
Sam Brown:So not dissimilar to your fridge having, you know, a three and a half or a four star energy rating or your washing machine having a two and a half, three star water rating or something. Any house that went to market for sale would have a star rating against it. And it may be, you know, it may be a brand new, high performance, um homestar registered home and it's got like a homestar rating of seven or eight. Or it may be a off the plans group home, um new build, but it has a star rating of three. Or it may be a beautiful old character villa in mount vic it has a star rating of three. Or it may be a beautiful old character villa in mount vic it has a star rating of one. You know.
Ben Sutherland:So is this something that exists or are you just making? Is this something you're just making up as we go along?
Sam Brown:it's not something that exists.
Sam Brown:It's not something, but it's also not something I'm making up, so it's something that's been floated out there and yeah, it's a great idea the new zealand green building council talked about it at the housing summit a couple of years ago and then they've started this campaign called the homes that we deserve campaign. Go check it out online and sign up if you're interested in supporting it, but essentially it's that idea. So you as a buyer, or you as a homeowner, or you as a business owner, commercial property owner you have a very quick and easy metric to understand what the quality of your building is and it's not like this isn't a matter of trying to degrade certain types of houses, but it's an easy way of telling the general public. Okay, the house that you're buying may look mint, but it performs like a piece of crap. It's like buying those really cool sunglasses off timo, but then you go outside and they're not polarized and you burn your eyes.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, so I this all sounds awesome, but I have to ask and maybe you can give us an example based on your experience how much added cost does all of this add to your construction? Let's assume a standard kind of residential three-bedroom house sort of thing. Is it a cost that's kind of worth doing or is it just still just so far out there that it's a struggle to get over the line?
Sam Brown:Yeah, it's a good question and it's a question that we in the high-performance architecture realm and building and construction development realm do struggle with, because it is more costly upfront to build these homes at the moment, and a lot of the reasons for that is you're using materials and detailing methods and construction methodologies that are not as common in the market, for example, sips, for example recessed windows, for example ventilation, air barriers and things like that. So mechanically ventilation with heat recovery. These are systems that are sort of becoming more understood and used in new zealand but are definitely still in their infancy. But as these pick up, as the momentum shifts, I think that the cost will obviously come down and as contractors in particular become more familiar with building in this style, they'll become more confident because at the moment they're just putting massive overheads on constructing anything of a high-performance nature because they don't really know what they're doing yet.
Ben Sutherland:But that's changing Too much uncertainty.
Sam Brown:Yeah, and then also, you know a lot of the materials that we're talking about, these low embodied carbon materials. They do come at a premium in a lot of instances because again, again, it's a shifting landscape in the material supply market. So it is more expensive. But you know we've talked about whole life cycle costs that will be realized over the lifetime of a building. The problem is like what's the likelihood of people buying or building a home, you know, and actually living in it for 50 to 60 years? It's pretty low, um, so it is a hard sell.
Gerard Dombroski:But I think it is the more that people push this change and the more that this change is realized to be a necessity, then these costs will come down hopefully yeah, yeah, I think whenever you add complexity you obviously add cost and the kind of worrying trend is that, like building costs getting a little bit out of control and a whole section of the population that a previous generation would have been able to buy a house or something.
Gerard Dombroski:So we're slowly locking a lot of the world out of owning a home, yeah, and that's, and with rising costs, which is kind of worrying with legislating this sort of stuff and making everyone build a house that's ultimately going to cost them a reasonable chunk more and then you're adding in solar panels and mechanical, I think there's a argument to be made for low performance housing and if you go back to like actually allowing people to have pretty basic buildings buildings are currently very basic, let's be fair. But like do we want people to be fair? But like do we want people to be able to own a home?
Sam Brown:Or like yeah, it's pretty, do you understand? Like, see where I'm coming from? Oh, definitely, Gerard. And to respond to that, that's exactly a problem that we've identified and trying to solve ourselves within our architecture practice is that we realise that this is it's a new style of construction, but it's a necessary style of construction. But the risk is, like you've identified, that it's unattainable for a lot of people.
Sam Brown:So we've tried to develop like a very simple off-the-shelf housing product. We've got six typologies that meet, called sip. Trust that. So the sip homes. But they they meet all of these high performance standards but, like, at a far more accessible price point.
Sam Brown:And a lot of compromises there come into like scale. So instead of that like gj gardener home that's going to cost you 500K, being 190 square meters or whatever, with a double garage, you have a high-performance home that costs the same amount, that's 110 square meters, same amount of bedrooms, same amount of storage space, same size kitchen and everything. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the space is just used far more efficiently. So it's just kind of better design but being able to bring it in at a more affordable price point, and then also seeing Fletcher Living do this 10-star home, which, by all intents and purposes looks pretty achievable. I'd say anybody is really promising and hopefully somebody with that power in the market can continue to lead the change and be able to provide this level of quality to that sort of more affordable housing market area. And in that same breath sorry, Ben, just quickly to finish, Kainga Ora, for instance, you know, who are providing social housing throughout the country. They are early adopters of the Homestar program and all of their projects have to achieve a Homestar 6 rating.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah.
Sam Brown:So they're leading the charge there as well, which is great.
Ben Sutherland:I was just going to say and don't some banks subsidise, to a certain extent, any of that?
Sam Brown:Yeah, so ASB, anz and kiwi bank all provide sustainability loans um for high performance homes or sustainability measures.
Sam Brown:My experience with the bank, the banks around this, is it's a little bit misguided. They they haven't quite understood like the whole home mortgage rate thing, like in terms of like the whole home being a sustainable measure. A lot of these loans are targeted at like double glazing your house or putting solar panels on or rainwater tanks or something like that. So like individual sort of or putting in like ev charges for cars or something along those lines, that they haven't quite jumped on board the entire project scale concept yet. But hopefully they start to understand that a little bit more. I know after the housing summit on the 23rd of may there's a banking over breakfast seminar, a bit with the banks about, um, sustainable loans. So if that tickles anybody's fancy, get along to that are the banks shouting breakfast?
Sam Brown:I think that's the plan, yeah count me in, yeah, so there's definitely but what I guess what would lead into being there is, there are mechanisms for for cheaper money for sustainable measures, which is great to see yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben Sutherland:One thing I was going to mention before which is is kind of equally as relevant here is in the commercial realm. It's kind of similar. It becomes more about like a combination of materials, because obviously you can't exactly specify timber, columns and beams and everything for an entire building. Well, you can, but some of your spans and your columns and costs, uh, increase significantly.
Sam Brown:So I guess the best you can do is find the best material for the best area and maximize it to its limits and I think that's exactly right and I think that's the answer for all of this discussion really is like there's a there's and gerard again to your sort of you're not low perform. Let's not call it low performance because it sounds degrading, but, like you know, to code type standard your standard.
Sam Brown:Yes, to standard your standard type construction, be that commercial or residential. You know there's a place for that, and then there's a place for high performance. But that's why I kind of like that star rating system for want of a better term is that it lets you know what you're buying. You know what I mean, because I think so often homeowners, business owners, building owners don't really understand what they have as an asset and whether it's good or whether it's bad, and I think that is a shortcoming of the industry so just to clarify as well, that star rating, it's basically the same setup as those health star ratings that we get on food packaging now, isn't it?
Ben Sutherland:yeah, exactly how good are they? I swear, I use those every day well, who was I talking to?
Sam Brown:oh, eli, um, from first light, said that I think it was. Eli said that his son won't eat butter now because it has a one-star rating on it.
Ben Sutherland:The awareness is amazing, isn't it?
Sam Brown:I mean his son's, like six or seven. I'm definitely pro-butter, but you're right it creates industry-wide awareness, which is super important.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, but yeah and again from creates industry-wide awareness, which is super important.
Sam Brown:Yeah, but yeah, and again, from the material point of view, like I think there's always going to be argument for different types of material, probably not much of an argument for steel, you know. Well, strength it's strength, for sure, but like, but in terms of the yeah span. I mean, the quantities that you need need are a lot less, but that's and it's cost.
Ben Sutherland:Unfortunately, the cost is significant. Significantly less as well.
Sam Brown:So here you go. I mean this is the argument.
Ben Sutherland:It's a, it's a balancing act it's it's a.
Sam Brown:It's a. It's a tough balancing argument for concrete yeah. So with the argument for concrete, I mean it lasts forever and it's recyclable, and do you know?
Ben Sutherland:that there is, they're working on. I'm not sure if it's all concrete or just a new type of concrete, but there's like a concrete that can absorb carbon dioxide over its lifespan. It's a process. It's not called sequestering whatever. It is not called sequestering whatever.
Sam Brown:It is carbon sequestering, like yeah, like uh, timber, it's called carbonation right, but even like firth, you know, all of their concrete now is low embodied carbon concrete. So they're using like different cementious, so you know, uh mixes like fly ash and things, things like that, to bring down that embodied carbon cost. So people in that realm are still striving for as best as they possibly can to reduce those numbers, which is great to see.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, definitely, and it'll only get better with a bit of forced innovation.
Sam Brown:It is Forced. Innovation and adoption by the industry is what's going to make this change. And you know, the dream is that we're having the same discussion in two to three years' time and this discussion is no longer high performance, it's standard, you know.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah. I wish someone out there would build a carbon counting attachment or add-on to Revit. Probably already exists, but I'm probably sure it's a bit clunky.
Sam Brown:Yeah, I mean there's tools out there, but it's still early days.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, I reckon it'll be great, though it can't be that hard to do.
Sam Brown:Nah, someone probably would have done it.
Gerard Dombroski:As the companies get their data together, it'll be easier to like. They all have their details on eBoss or something. Maybe they'll rev it, plugins or come with a.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, well, that data thing is actually quite interesting. Because I think, from my understanding, 2025, when they create this mandatory carbon calculating mandate or whatever you want to call it, I believe that's only going to. It'll go for a year and they'll basically just collect all the industry data, figure out where things are actually meant to be, and then 2026, they'll basically redo the whole thing based on that data Right interesting.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, and then 2026, they'll basically redo the whole thing based on that data Right Interesting? Yeah, they really haven't. I don't know. It's early days, such early days in the process.
Sam Brown:It is, and you know we were early adopters in this realm, mainly because it was just like something that I really wanted to pursue and so, you know, pretty knowledgeable.
Sam Brown:But it's nice to have the opportunity to sort of start to continue to educate in this realm and it's cool to see, you know, so many people picking it up and running with it.
Sam Brown:You know I've mentioned Rob Seymour.
Sam Brown:He's a friend of all of ours actually. You know, at the commencement of his project I sort of mentioned a lot of these high performance concepts and details and construction methods to him and he didn't offhandedly discount them but like he was sort of like oh no, you know, do it this, you know, the same old way. And then, as we kind of worked through the process and he started to learn himself and started to educate himself on the area, he started, started to champion it himself and now has totally run with it and I'd say that it's completely changed his view on construction, which is amazing to see, you know, and I can say likewise for other builders that we've worked with, where they've worked on a high-performance home that we've done, and it's completely changed their view on the construction industry and it's something that they're now championing in their own business and practice, which is cool to see. And you know, the only hope is that you can continue to sort of have these moments of influence that continue to sort of grow that industry in that way.
Ben Sutherland:It would be awesome if the compliance sorry, the Homestar assessment would come down in price, because it costs like what is it like two or two and a half grand or something to do it's so it's quite expensive come talk to me.
Sam Brown:I'm a homestar assessor, I'm gonna hook you up. Oh, you're nice I think there's.
Gerard Dombroski:There's like a. I like like Rob's non-passive, passive house approach. Like you aim for these things, you just incorporate the good bits. But then you like, is there actually a benefit in having a star? Like, is that social credit?
Sam Brown:Yeah, and you're right, gerard, and that's interesting. I mean, at the moment, there isn't really any purpose in having those certifications or anything other than either like self-satisfaction or social cred, as you said.
Ben Sutherland:You can potentially get resale Potentially resale.
Sam Brown:but I know, for instance, ralph McLean's trying to sell one of his or a project for his is trying to sell in Dunedin a passive House home. It is really cool. I went and visited it just for a nosy at an open home a couple of weeks ago. But it's not getting a lot of interest and you know you find Too expensive.
Sam Brown:Well, that's it, and you know, you kind of, I guess, as a seller, you'd hope that that Passive House stamp sort of justifies that higher value, but it's not necessarily being recognized. But, like we talked about, if it becomes that sort of you know, the star rating becomes universal, then I think it would apply a lot more. But like you said, Gerard, there is so much merit in designing with passive house principles in mind or designing with home star principles in mind and using that, detailing and using their or having an understanding of their metrics. Not necessarily getting the certification, although I do encourage people to get homestar certification, but at least that's how you can but, do it off-grid but you know
Sam Brown:like, at least, if, at least, if people are, you know, designing, or at least people designing those things in mind, that baseline is lifting, you know, across the board, which is awesome.
Ben Sutherland:And so when did you say the conference?
Sam Brown:was 22nd of May in Auckland, our TS Centre, New Zealand Green.
Ben Sutherland:Building.
Sam Brown:Council Housing Summit.
Ben Sutherland:Are directed more towards the high densification.
Sam Brown:Yeah, I mean from my experience and being there before a lot of the conversation, because the biggest players they are generally developers and so a lot of the focus is at that higher scale or larger scale development stuff, be that small townships, be that medium density dwellings, um that sort of thing. But then there's also scope for for those of us that work in the more bespoke individual housing sector I'll be presenting on a few of our houses that we've done and as ourselves as early adopters of the version 5 homestar program. So there's definitely scope for everybody there and there's a. You know there's a lot of industry and material. You know supply leaders and stuff. There as well, there's a good chance to network with similar-minded people in the high-performance realm.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, see what everyone else is doing. Yeah, Awesome. Oh well, shall we wrap it up there.
Sam Brown:Sounds good.
Ben Sutherland:I hope everyone's enjoyed the discussion on sustainability and learned at least one thing hopefully a few things. Any further questions or comments? Feel free to DM us on Instagram and don't forget to rate and subscribe, Thanks again to Conor Dolman for the visual art and Jacob Marshall for the sound. Legends Conor Dolman for the visual art and Jacob Marshall for the sound Legion Peace.