2w ago

Kiwi firm designs low-cost, fast-build house

www.rnz.co.nz

A New Zealand architecture company has designed a three-bedroom house that three people can assemble in six weeks for $335,000.
RTA Studio just constructed its first 'Living House' in Rotorua.
It is 85sqm and designed for quick assembly once the foundations are in place, the cost includes a functional kitchen with appliances as well as flooring, lighting, carpets and heating. It does not include the land value.

22 comments

fast, cheap, good; pick two
i wonder what the quality is
- It's really specifically tailored to reduce the labour required. I think the quality reduction is in the design, it's not exactly the prettiest, they said all plumbing and electronics are designed to be together to reduce tradesman hours (does that mean you don't get hotpoints in convenient places?), all will be exactly the same (you can already get cheaper houses by mass producing the exact same design).
  I am also not a fan of high ceilings, which can be hard to heat. Corrugated iron for all cladding is nice and cheap but not exactly the nicest looking.
  I wonder how this compares functionally to a flat pack house. It might not be that much different, in terms of both price and function.
  
  Simplifying design is exactly what should be the answer to a housing crisis IMO. Nowadays we build too many houses with upper middle-class designs (and costs) because they're the only people who can actually afford houses.
  But go back to the sorts of builds from the 70s & 80s. Typically around 100-120m2, 3 bedroom, rectangular. Yeah they're not architectural delights, but they kept families dry and warm.
  Nowadays in a lot of places we're building in-fill town houses with a similar aesthetic and I know a lot of people don't like it but I think overall its probably a good idea. Even in smaller centres like Hastings it can work so long as we get the community spaces right as well.
- Yeah, you can get a shed from bunnings and assemble it yourself for a few hundred dollars, doesn't make it a good house though.
  No mention of insulation, which should be a top priority for low income housing, otherwise the heating and cooling costs will be crazy.
  Also, doesnt fisher and paykel have a fairly poor reputation for reliability?
  
  If I'm reading it right, the walls are prefabricated pine panels 120mm thick with corrugated iron external cladding.
  No idea how that would compare to typical timber framed construction. Probably no worse.
  
  It's a good point on the insulation though. It has no mention of that, but says it's pre-consented, so must meet insulation requirements. Are these prefab panels naturally well insulating?
  
  Someone can chip in with actual numbers, but pine is a goodish insulator, but it depends on the thickness. Corrugated iron is a terrible insulator, and the real important part is what's in between. I can't help but think that if it was good stuff, they would be proudly spruiking it in the article :/
  
  They cover it here: https://livinghouse.nz/#living-house-cost-breakdown
  They allocate $15k for insulation. It says cost dependant on location - different parts of the country have different requirements for R value so I'm guessing they are going for bare minimum required by law. However, it turns out they are an architecture company not a building company so they simply sell you the plans for $10k and you contract your own builders to do it (they have agreements with suppliers for most of it but you aren't required to use them). What I'm getting at is you can spend a bit more and get better insulation if you wanted to.
  
  No mention of insulation, which should be a top priority for low income housing, otherwise the heating and cooling costs will be crazy.
  I eventually found this site: https://livinghouse.nz/
  It has this cost breakdown:
  There's also this more detailed breakdown: https://livinghouse.nz/#living-house-cost-breakdown
  It seems it does have insulation, as they allocate $15k for the cost of insulation including delivery.
  Heating is via a heatpump (with power partly provided from the solar). The place is only 85sqm so it should be enough to keep it cosy, since it will have to meet modern insulation requirements. It also uses a heat pump hot water system which should save on the power bills.
  Also, doesn't fisher and paykel have a fairly poor reputation for reliability?
  Yeah I generally avoid them. Lucky thing is that the site explains that they are not builders just architects, you buy the plans from them then find a builder to build it. They have agreements with certain suppliers to bring down the costs but presumably you can decide to buy different appliances.
  
  Some oddly specific numbers there for the estimates. Would like to see some R values for the insulation, but $15k does buy a lot of good insulation, so its promising. (Edit: just saw your other reply, would have to see what the builders actually put in to know more)
  I wonder how skilled one needs to be to assemble these houses? If the instructions are good, and its not too hard, could save some more money on the labor side of things? You can do your own electrical work in NZ right?
  
  It seems you can do a lot yourself but you wouldn't be able to avoid an electrician completely. The thing that stands out to me is that you can't connect the house to the grid, and you can't connect new subcircuits. So you can replace existing hot points, but if you install new ones then you can run the cabling but need to have an electrician actually connect it to the power, and need the work to be inspected.
  They talk about cutting the electrician time down to a few days for this design, I guess you could make it one day if you do the leg work yourself and just have them there for the inspection and connection.
  For assembling, it seems like you should be able to do it with a few friends so long as you have a loader crane type thing. I presume you can hire those but I'm not sure what the class requirements are to drive them.
- You can get some cost mileage out of standardization and scale. Wanting everything custom-made will drive up prices, and not building at any significant scale also does the same

22 comments