D.I.Y Density: F. Gordon Wilson Fellowship Recipients, Spacecraft

Speaker 1 Welcome back. This week Bean makes his long-awaited return to the fold and we are joined by Tim Ghettos and Cara Robertson from Spacecraft Architects, recent recipients of the Gordon Wilson Fellowship for their project Di Y Density. Tim Ankara received their award last week at the Institute conference and I was lucky enough to sit down with them and have a chat about their submission. For those that don't know, Tim and Kara are Wellington based architects whose work has a strong focus on housing, urbanism and finding smarter ways to make our cities work harder without losing the things that make our neighborhoods good places to live. Their fellowship research looks at how we might approach medium density housing and a more flexible, accessible and genuinely people focused way. Today we're going to talk about DY density, what they've learned through their fellowship submission, they're involvement with the NSW Housing Pattern book, and what all this might mean for the future of housing in our Tehran. So let's dive in. Welcome, Tim Carrick. First of all, congratulations. Speaker 2 Yeah, Congrats. Speaker 1 Thanks winning there Gordon Wilson Fellowship. For those of you out there that don't know, Tim and Caro AKA Spacecraft Arctic's have won the Gordon Wilson fellowship this year for affordable housing. I think it's the outline of this, isn't it? Speaker 2 They've just changed it from public housing I believe. Speaker 1 Was it 2000 and 2023? I think they changed it to to affordable. Speaker 2 Might have coincided with the government defunding public housing, but. Speaker 1 We hadn't thought about that. Not not information about your voice submission out there other than what's on the NZ Air website, your submission being DI density. Do you guys want to take us through what that is and what that means and what your submission was about? Speaker 3 Yes. So the day I have aspect is confusing people because they think we mean for people to build their own houses with their hands, but we're really talking about the development aspect of building. Speaker 2 We've worked on a bunch of Co housing developments and even just smaller dents or semi dents, owner developed projects I guess as most architects and just realise the value of people being able to run their own ship in that regard. Not relying on developer provided housing and realising that if people are kind of in charge of what they're getting, they might make different decisions and get the better outcome. Really we're just looking at what would be an appropriate scale and sort of desirable urban form for info developments that will provide more density than currently being allowed under things like the Mrs. and and it kind of. Speaker 1 So is that what led you guys to that three Storey walk up topology Is it, did you kind of see that as being the the silver bullet scale solution? Speaker 2 Yeah, it it feels like it ticks a lot of boxes. I guess the, the first one being that I guess since the NDRS happened and the roll out of it, a lot of info generally town housing developments which tend to take the form of running deeper into the block, we call them sausage flats. And so inevitably you're creating a whole lot of overlooking issues with the neighboring site, which is also eventually going to do the same thing. And you've got a whole lot of site used up for vehicle manoeuvring, getting garages deeper into the site and basically covering up a whole lot of beer land that can otherwise be used for gardens or trees, protecting existing trees, that kind of thing. Still modern filtration. So by flipping from a, a sausage flat to a, a walk up that faces the street, you get, you get all the amenity of light and view from your your street boundary and then from your backyard boundary, which you're not, you know, building into because you've got a whole instead. Speaker 1 The topology that you guys are exploring, that sort of three Storey walk ups and that it's not new. It's essentially it's been done for a long time. You know, think of British terrace houses or American brownstone walk ups, that sort of thing. The development that you guys are kind of focusing on, is it more individual houses or is it looking at that three Storey walk up being like this cohabitation cohousing type solution? Speaker 3 So the framework that I think we see a lot as the three Storey walk up is provided by public housing funding and that's one of the things we're obviously missing a bit of. And then social problems get layered on top of the specific housing type that are now experience and not necessarily associated with the type of housing, but by with the kind of amenity that goes with it and the community that's living in it. Speaker 2 It's kind of a baby in the bath water type thing, right? Where it's like, that's a really good functional housing with heaps of amenity, a lot of benefits. But yeah. Has it become seen as undesirable because of, you know, unsuccessful visions of it in the past? Speaker 3 I've been cracking up thinking about how many people leave Altera and go travelling and like love these towns that have this 3 to 4 Storey predominantly housing and villages and you know that that's what they they're going there for and then couldn't kind of process what they would mean for their own lives here. We're just so keen on having get a garden and green space and one of the things we're seeing is there are other owner developed projects of that scale and other countries. So once you when you realise that a lot of the quality of the places where they're somebody's bought into living there would be huge renter moving on problem culture in this country. And so it's it's kind of looking more at how what tools people would need to create their own housing like they could then invest in and that kind of long term, this is where I live neighborhood with. Speaker 1 And do you guys see that as being, and you've already touched on it, do you see their ownership, I guess for one of a better term, being a potential solution to that New Zealand mentality or that the struggle that we have in adapting to a new style of living? You know, not, you know, that quarter acre dream that's so entrenched in our society. And like you said, you go travelling and you you live in these other places and you love them and they're great and you think they're, you know, think they're wonderful and you come home and you go now can't do that. Here is the whole kind of ownership model that you guys are looking at. Is that sort of the angle that you're taking to potentially solve their societal adaptation issue? Speaker 3 I mean, that's the way that we've got ourselves into housing. We came out of the architect degree and we understood the tools beyond just the building that allowed you to get into the housing market. So subdivision property purchase price, there are somethings that we can take advantage of because we had the skill set and then I guess having achieved that successfully for ourselves, we've looked at how you could use that same knowledge to help other. Speaker 2 People, yeah. And looking at like, say with the Buckley Rd. projects that we did, which was for households on one suburban section, and you know that that went really smoothly. The client group was amazing. They really switched on. They knew what they were trying to achieve and the the uncertainty and the risk involved didn't put them off. But in reality, you know, not everyone's got that risk profile. So to us, it's like if you can make that a bit more of a certainty, make it something that you can see before you start the process and go, hey, do you guys want to do something like this? And you've got something to point to rather than just saying, hey, do you want to commit money and time and resources to doing something that we don't know what it is and we don't know what it costs and we don't know if we'll be allowed to do it, but sounds like a good idea. Like there's just too much uncertainty in that. So by the idea of having a whether it's a pre approved thing or it's just a precedent that gives people a sort of touchstone and that seems like a a sort of important resource to help that become more accessible. Speaker 3 And I actually don't think we would have been as audacious as we are at this point at the beginning of our careers, because we wouldn't have confidently felt like the the core needs of people in housing were that similar. And our Co housing project work has really drawn that out that as much as people and a lot of architecture chat is about spark housing and how well it suits the people who live in the house. When you kind of zoom out at that, you realise a lot of housing's produced to make money and not to suit people. And So what we're really critiquing is the current model of getting houses to market. They are optimised for things that are not what people need in a house. And so that's that's the angle that we are coming at this from is when people get to choose for themselves, what do they choose? And then normalising that and making a pattern out of that. Speaker 1 You guys are developed from that, like you said, coming out of architecture school and kind of doing how do we design a good house for ourselves, but using different models and methods to do that. Moving now into what is a better way for producing housing for all, Would you say that you've kind of incrementally or iteratively throughout your career is kind of jump made these jump steps with I guess pattern, the pattern book and we can talk a little bit more about that being this last stepping stone before jumping into this new DIY concept because there's similarities. I feel like there's similarities throughout the whole lineage. Speaker 2 I guess the common thread, one of them anyway, is that we have always believed that, you know, architecture should serve a broader audience, that it shouldn't be the preserve of, you know, the, you know, explosive beachside golf course subdivision or the, you know, the penthouse apartment suites or whatever. So it should be more accessible just as an everyday common good, you know, And then I guess through doing the work, as the economy shifted and people's expectations have changed, that's gone from being, I guess for about 10 years in Wellington. We could, we could help people get a house where if they got a little scrap of land and we, we could design them something and get it built basically for around about the same cost as a draughty old villa next door. And they'd get a much better house that, that reflected their, their life and what they wanted to do. And as the economy of that's changed, that I guess led up to doing our own house where we split a section with our good mates and, you know, neighbors of 10 years now and seeing the benefits of of having some, you know, just neighbor neighborliness. That was your one. And then up to Buckley Rd. It's like the logical extension of that is, you know, attaching houses closer together, making sure they're still close to the city and maybe less focus on the the individuality of the design every time and just what constitutes a good house in the city, you know? Speaker 3 On their block party project, they picked up the existing single family home that was there and replaced it with four houses. And I keep thinking about what that would be like on if we moved city. The building stock up kind of in large quantities into regional areas and replace them with, you know, it's really hard to work around existing building stock and especially because some of them are in great position in some of their more terrible condition. And so that's I think partly why we're so focused on the infill aspect because the cityscape is really important to us and the the kind of amenity of being able to network and to places and and stay in our communities that we've already embedded ourselves in. So we've been really looking at how you retrofit density into suburbs for. Speaker 2 That reason, I guess, shifting from thinking of info as building a sneaky house in the backyard, which we've, you know, thought more about what the logical extension of that is. And that's no backyards anywhere. To think you haven't fell as yeah, removing one house and replacing it with, say in this case 5 apartments and and leaving the backyard as a shared amenity for those households. Again, rather than chopping it up into five little tiny gardens, you leave it whole and and let it be a sort of a a greater resource. Speaker 3 When we look at our proposal and plan, it just looks the same as the existing neighborhood. And so you actually have to look at it in three dimensions to see what is radical about what we propose. But we're trying to make it not look radical. Speaker 4 The Bloc Party is, is so cool. It's like a when you walk in there, it's like you're walking through a little alleyway anyway, you know, it's like a little little Beck Rd. and and you kind of going past all your neighbors and you, your friends and yeah, it's super social and interactive, which is kind of like walking down a little little St. in Europe or something. Speaker 2 Yeah, that was so happy with how that space worked out. And you know, since moving in, a couple of the owners have had kids and stuff. And it's, it's such an active, yeah, little Rd. without any cars on it. Speaker 3 They had a cracker party the other day where they each made a different meal and served it out of their kitchen window onto that street. Yeah. So we're just really keen on providing those spaces within housing so that those things happen organically. We're not. You know, we've come from a background of working with a few Co housing groups. And some of those things can get a bit too intentional and like a lot of policies and a lot of shared kind of facilities that have a bit of an admin headache. So we're kind of looking at how those things can coexist with independent housing and you can benefit from them without feeling like they're an additional burden to your already overburdened life. Speaker 1 Just going back to the infill comment quickly, how much did you guys look here? Was it the 2024 fellowship winners Blue was a Bluefield site development because it sort of has a whole idea was that use of interstitial space and this seems like your advancement on that idea, which is quite a nice continuation of of one what the fellowships trying to provide. But you know the growth and in design development. Was there a driver for you at all? Speaker 3 I mean, I really love the search engine aspect of that, you know, to, to have got to that granular level of detail and see what these sites are. There was a huge part of the NSW patent project was just seeing what has actually already out there. That also ties in. So I think the Bluefields concept is also coming from Damien Madigan and Australia and and it's so those two things fit in quite nicely together. But the they're all grappling with how you deal with existing housing stock and try not to change too much about a city while densifying. And I think we've identified the, the site cover is for us the biggest problem. You know, in 2018 they changed the law in Auckland and some horrendous amount of tree cover just vanished from the city. And you know, the council's trying to like plant trees and, and so we're really keen on livability, I guess, rather than just the direct problem solving that covers up every inch of ground worth more low rise housing that the kind of cost and energy and material efficiency of a attached building like what we're proposing is quite compact and very simple and easy to maintain. And so you know. Speaker 2 I'm like all the thermal benefits of actually sticking houses together. It's just, it's kind of a no, Brenda. And yeah, I think it was, it was from doing that work because we've done lots of little infill houses and backyards and we've kind of loves doing that work. But we did kind of end up thinking that, yeah, really, if, if everyone does that, what is the city look like? And maybe that's not the best, best shape for how these things develop for the next sort of 50 or 100 years. It's, you know, it's not dense enough, basically. Speaker 3 The transitional element of what we're proposing is really important because it can kind of coexist happily in our view with what is there already. And so as I was saying, if somebody's house has been maintained and renovated and it's in a great shape, it stays there and lives there on happily. And then one that's just been left, that kind of dissolve into the ground can be replaced by something that's much denser. And there's a, you could have a run of three or four or five of these in a row and they would still impact the neighborhood in a positive way. So I think we're thinking a lot about the streetscape and how you manage privacy and bringing verandas and kind of these really lovely house like structures into a more denser building that allows people to have the same kind of life. Speaker 4 And at a time where I feel like it's so critical over the last 10 years, when you know, New Zealand's basically started developing within their medium density realm, there's been some questionable buildings, you know, Rd. housing, especially the I'm up here in Auckland. It's extremely noticeable in in some suburbs around here, which is such a shame because you know, like you said before, in areas like Europe where they have the densification and they've been working on it for, you know, centuries. It's just such a nice space to live in and because we've seen so much poor execution, I feel like it's kind of put us a little bit on the back foot and and it's good to see a lot of more development in terms of like the how those spaces are actually developed within that realm. Speaker 1 Side densification without urbanisation really isn't it? Speaker 2 Yes, like how can we there, A lot of that housing you're talking about is basically just, it's like, how can we get more houses in here without giving up on an essentially suburban concept of what a city is? And we've just got to stop doing that because it's not going to build good cities and it's going to be driveways and garages covering like 90% of them. Speaker 3 But it does come back to the spectable build model. You know, those people building those buildings know what they're spending and they know what they're going to be worth at the end of the day. And so those are the answers that I think we need from what we're proposing is what's it gonna cost about this and is it gonna have a value that the market can sustain the building of these alternatives. So I think it's it's so fine-tuned as to whether you can get something else work. Speaker 4 And and just adding to that, I don't believe that all of the stuff that they have been building for so long, especially you know, the the new kind of row house developments. I think people believe that it is what the market actually wants. But a lot of them just sit on the market for such a long period of time that I believe it's what developers or real estate agents or whatever believe that the market wants, but likely not what the market actually wants. Speaker 2 Thing that's why we find the idea of owner develops projects so interesting as well, because then they're not guessing they're not having this this sort of averaged out idea of what what people want. They go, this is what I want and I'm going to make it and then you do it and then that serves as a precedent for other people and they go, oh look, you can do it that way as well or you can do it that way and then so they they build on themselves as well. So, you know, the more projects like this that happen them, the broader a sense of of how you can live in the city, you know, a different idea can emerge. Speaker 1 In terms of you guys winning the fellowship now and the direction forward, you've obviously got this really strong concept and a really strong idea on what you want to develop. What's the next outcome, what's the next steps? Because you sounds like you've got something pretty fully fleshed conceptually already, but what does that look tangibly in 12 months time that sort of the resultant of the fellowship period? Speaker 3 So when we pitch for it, we were going like on about 6 different channels of how it might work because we think having something that is highly permissible would allow the market to gear itself towards producing that. And I think the affordability piece needs a huge chain of consistent demand to realise any of those savings as opposed to a similar bespoke project. So we're really interested in the replicability of it. But the the work that we're going to do first of all is look backwards and dock at the successful car housing project types and find out what in the process of getting. Honoured to a development that's built, was successful and what was hard and what parts need smoothing. Hmm. And then the other part they were looking at is these design elements that resolve the moments of arrival into a building. So I think nobody's too worried about what a sitting in apartment, living in an apartment looks like. Whereas some of the parts about resolving vehicles and pedestrians and brown paper and those kind of things, they're all design elements. So we're going to draw out those and discuss why we make the decisions that we make and the designs that we're proposing. Speaker 2 Initially we're saying like, hey, let's, let's make it a akin to a pattern book or this is something that would feed into any possible local pattern book. Because in our experience with the Australian one, basically they went from terraced housing up to four to six Storey apartments. And there's a really obvious middle step in there, which to us takes a whole lot of boxes like remote construction of efficiency and, uh, you know, neighborhood scale point of view. It just seems like an obvious a thing that should be in the mix basically. So whether we can conduct all this research, get a really strong case study together and then use that to talk to councils or people working on RM reform, new district planning regs, you know, try and feed it into the mixes, all of this stuff that's changing around around these. Speaker 3 Questions builders who already do developments on this kind of scale. You know, we really like the idea that also like, even if you just think about a building company queuing out projects, they could kind of crack one of these out in a gap between them some of their other projects. You know, it's like trying to actually work with what our existing building industry looks like and and tailor it to something that they would be happy to take on rather than be a headscratcher. Speaker 1 Yeah. So the outcomes more of like a patent book, a series of I guess solutions and concepts that can be applied to different design topologies or design outcomes rather than you guys actually designing a prototype of what this could be. Speaker 3 Ohh, no, I think it is. I mean ideally we would have a pre consented building, right. So you would get both resource and building consent. I mean, this is in Lala ideal land where a multi approach should handle that. Yeah, yeah. So like literally removing the barriers of uncertainty and. Speaker 2 Completely, which is basically what we got to with what a pattern like a. For a pattern book to be useful, it basically needs to be those things. Otherwise it's just some nice pictures. Speaker 3 Because in the end, designers actually a priorities game. And so you can like draw a whole bunch of like the the Alexander's pattern book is such a fantastic book, but it doesn't even look at how one thing pieces together with another thing and gets in its way and you have to make some decisions about what. So we do understand these elements as designers, but in each circumstance, so they they shift about differently. And so we don't think that having a kit of parts is really gonna cut it. It's not gonna guarantee a great enough outcome. So I think what we're looking at doing is finding those common sites, which is what draws on the previous Gordon Wilson Fellowship work, looking at what those sites are available and trying to get it basically on the smallest 1 and so that it also works on the bigger ones. Speaker 4 Yeah. So are you, who are you targeting? Are you targeting the developer in this case, or the builder or the home owner? Speaker 3 So we've had a few clients come to us that are groups of one form or another and they don't conform to a specific profile. Some of them are three. Speaker 4 Generations of the family. Speaker 3 Yeah, some of them are friends. Some of them, you know, there are, there are always some relationships in there. Yeah. But we are just kind of looking back at the those people that have come to us and we look at what, whether this, what we're proposing would work for all of them, even though they're quite different from each other. And we that's what we're going for. Speaker 4 More people need to know that there is a viable option as well. I think it's probably because because it's kind of like outside the normal realm of design build. I wonder, I question how many people were actually kind of know that that is an option. And so as much information out there, the better I guess, and this case. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah, every time we talk, we seem to bring up simplicity living because they're so cool the way that they have that they basically came and tried to solve a specific problem. The specific problem was affordability of apartment buildings and they cracked their fairly quickly and then realised that who was buying them wasn't who needed the affordability aspect. So they were kind of somebody else was gaining the financial uptick that they had managed to buy hard work, get out of the build cost. And so then they went and became property developers, property managers as well. And then they partnered with the simplistic Kiwi Saver scheme. And now they do build to rent. And that's just because they couldn't work out how to get the affordability piece to the people who needed it, because people can't mobilise to buy when they're in a certain financial bracket. And so, yeah, they are now getting to those people who need the affordability through renting it. And housing is a long term asset. So it's a, it's a really beautiful pairing of the kind of retirement funds with the livability and a just a better quality housing outcome. Speaker 1 The differing factor with them and and I guess it's the same with what you guys proposing as ownership though, right? People that are developing to flip, they've got no ownership over the final product. But if you're building to own or to lease and use it as a valuable asset, but you have so much more care and responsibility in the process and the project. And it's essentially what this is, this is proposing, but instead of it being like simplicity, massive scale, big developer, this is like home owners, a group of us. Let's maybe just get ourselves into a home that's affordable with a group of us, and then we have this asset which we can then lean on in the future. Is that the idea? Speaker 2 Yeah, basically. And like that thing for us, the scale of it working on one like on a single site is really important because the amount of complexity that that takes out of it like not having to try and you know, acquire multiple sites adjoining one another and then, you know, adjust the boundaries. It's just one suburban section. And I think again, with, with Buckley Rd., the value of having an existing house there for the period that they were doing the, you know, planning, consenting, all of that sort of stage. They were able to live there. And their money was going back to their own mortgage on that property while they were doing the, the development. And even that like the the value of that rather than you're still syphoning money off to at your landlord basically while you're trying to make yourself a house like it just it just keeps bringing everything back out to the project. Speaker 3 Yeah. And that that comes back to the DI development and that's, I think we realised. So we're living in Wanganui when before we started our practise and our rent was really manageable. And then we moved back to Wellington and we were kind of aghast. We were like, how did that even, you know, how does anyone sustain this amount of rental payment? And so at that point we looked at how we did reverse engineer our rent payments into a mortgage equity situation. And we actually got equity through subdivision. So we bought a I'm a sort of marginally viable piece of land that would have freaked out other people to develop it because of the slope and then split it in half. So, you know, it's, it's what we realise what got us into housing is actually the developer type thinking. And ironically, the one of the days that we early on, someone like the local newspaper came by and there and they had a good photo of the site that we've built on and they're like, developers are ruining our neighborhood or something like that picked up. And at that time we were like, kind of like freedom developers. We're homeowners. But now we're embracing it. You know DY development. Let's get into it. Speaker 4 Yeah, I did the exact same thing and it worked so well though. Speaker 1 If you had to identify then that the that that key barrier to obviously you've said you've done it yourselves and you've learned probably a lot through that process. The key barrier to other people that are adopting this idea is it, is it generally that risk? Is it their kind of the lack of surety about the project? Is it the consenting phase and is that what you guys are targeting more so than maybe like prefabrication or materials or anything in a pre design idea? Is it the assurance factor versus the actual build factor? Speaker 3 You know, we've taken a close look at modular builders and like a lot of people have had a very good go at it. And you know, there's a rule of thumb out there that you need 1000 of anything to sort of make a worthwhile doing any prefabrication. And we're just not getting the cue up of demand. And I think that's, there's a lot of change because naturally speaking, so we're just not, we've got a consistent enough market. And that's where central city living is so cool because they've got like a massive queue of people who are keen to move in. And that's how the Nightingale model worked in Australia. The initial architects took a huge risk on proving their model worked. And then they just got so many people are keen. They've, they basically, I think got so much demand that they can just keep building these buildings knowing that they've got a market. So they kind of broke the mould of what people think is valuable. Speaker 2 But that's it, right? That's by providing A precedent, you show people what it can be, and then that then feeds into the loop of what people want. Yeah. I think for us it's the yeah, obviously the building needs to be efficient, needs to be simple and easy to construct and all of those sorts of things. But yeah, don't actually think that's that's the problem. It's it's the degree of uncertainty and risk and unknowability at the start. If you can show people how good it could be without them having to go and spend 10s of thousands of dollars on professional services, that seems like a real good legal. Speaker 3 Architecture is such a leap of faith. You know, when you when you really understand how much people are grasping what you've done for them once they move into the building and not before that. You know, I think we always think they know what we're proposing. We provide a lot of documentation. But the reality is when they step into that space, they're suddenly like, oh, this is what you've done for us. Yeah, yeah, Sorry. Yeah. There's a certain group of people that are comfortable with it. They're. I don't know what you're doing for me, but I think it's gonna be worth it. Speaker 2 Yeah, and I'm gonna gamble all of my life's money ever on that being a good idea. Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean that's yeah, that's kind of just just takes it away. It puts the control in your hands. You as the DIY developer, you know, puts all that control in your hands as that the idea that these groups or the people that would have you know that the groups or individuals or households or whatever developed I developers and adopt this model, they're obviously doing the planning side of things. Are you looking at them building it as well? Or is this also an Ave. to create a small a larger building industry workflow as well? Because if there's, if this takes off, right, and you can see that, you know, there's absolute leagues here and we'll just create easy to build, fast replicable construction like you see that can drop into a builder's workflow if and when they've got low spots. We have a massive upside for the construction industry, which, let's be honest, is battling at the mo. Speaker 3 Yeah, I think we also, you know, you were saying before when was it be a a series of principles rather than an actual design. We really keen for it to be especially coherent design, but then blow any builder to use their own methodology, whatever building construction methods meet the code, you know, aesthetically have a have a various palette that 10 again meet the code. But we're not we're not interested in controlling those aspects. We sort of think a spatial generosity is a language of its own, and that it can carry various specific material choices within it. Speaker 2 But I definitely think like in the sense of the wider industry that is a very appealing in in game, right. If if these things are really well known, like Iran's built 1, you know how to do it. You can you there's no big surprises. There's no big uncertainties like on a constructional side that that's super appealing development really. Well, one thing with the with the sort of cladding choices and colours and things like that, Like it was interesting with the pattern book for the government. Speaker 3 Architects and Australia. Speaker 2 And NSW, they're interested and basically each design having three, you know, formal languages to it, so be 3 different colours or three different cladding materials or whatever it might be. And we're really interested in like pairing that with the construction system for each one. So, you know, if you're doing the the bog standard concrete construction methodology for Australia, if you weight cladding like a brick makes heaps of sense, you know, they're, they're natural appearing. But if you're going for a lightweight sort of CLT structure, then you're going to need a lightweight cladding system as well. So doing something like 10 would make sense in that, in that line up. And so yeah, the idea of having those options, but them still being a a sensible sort of logical conclusion of the way it's being built seems like a really appealing way to have variety without it being an arbitrary kind of pasted over the top type. Speaker 3 Thing and our values would say everything had to be decarbonised and you need you know, we could get very narrow on what we prescribe this to be, but we were really interested in urban form and preservation of green space and biodiversity and functioning natural environment. So we're foregrounding there. So we're just like, build it however you want to at this point. You know, obviously legislation might come and it changes what's viable on that front. But at the moment we're just like, it's so these buildings are probably going to last for a long time. And so for our perspective, we kind of really quickly want to Chuck in an intervention that stops all the ground getting come. Speaker 1 You can basically make these things not as expensive or as cheap as you like, but you've taken away the barrier of planning. You know, you've taken away the barrier of how do I even start? And really the decision making is what I want this to look like, how I want this to feel and that and the nice way becomes an individualistic nature of it and what will stop this from being just like cookie cutter. This is the same technology Bang Bang, bang, bang, bang. So here's the model behind it all. This one looks like this. It's got a value, you know, sitting up here and this one's down here because, you know, they had less money and they built it themselves, whatever. But like fundamentally it's all the same outcome. I kind of liked that idea and that cause I think there's one thing that I, when I was reading through as much info as I could find initially about it and I was like, is there the risk that you over prescribe and then everything becomes very generic? Or is there the risk that you under prescribe and then it becomes just like a free for all and there's no control? And by the sounds of that, you guys have thought long and hard about this and found that balance of control being and planning and the freedom being and exclusion. Speaker 2 Again, at at Buckley Rd. Like those four houses are the same, They're the same cladding, they're the same, you know, basic shape, etcetera. They, they took control of, you know, interior paint. We designed the kitchens and then they chose their materials and their different in each house. They chose stuff like light fittings and the tiles in the bathroom. But so none of those things really had any major flow on for the, the building and the consenting and all that sort of stuff, the amenity of the building's. But you walk and teach those houses and they all feel distinct. You know, you're never going to mistakenly be in the wrong house. Like they all feel individual, but really the mechanisms they use to to make them feel different a pretty minor and and that's a lovely thing. Like you don't need to give everyone a different roof angle and a, you know, completely different spatial system for their houses to feel like their own houses. Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm a massive fan of the pattern broken and your design for the apartment complex there. How did you find stepping out of the standard residential one off or or you know multi unit to apartment for a for giving that a go? Speaker 3 It kinda cracked us up that we got shortlisted to do the apartment, the four to six Storey apartment rather than the, you know, town house cause. Speaker 2 We've isn't it cause we took the? Speaker 3 Box we didn't tick the box, you know, in terms like we should just stick the low rise box and I was like, whatever, we're just gonna tick all the boxes. But I thoroughly enjoyed, you know, the problem solving aspect of that. And I think our initial pitch in their expression of interest for that was like, look, we basically do this in our spare time of, you know, with no client because you're really interested in the commonalities of what makes a good outcome. We're really interested. And many, many more people living in wonderful quality housing. And so that was just such a an excellent opportunity to really think about all these things that we're discussing today. Speaker 2 It's great having like a really well informed client because the office of the government architect is full of absolute ninjas. And those are our clients, you know, so as a, as a testing board or like a, a critique engine, fantastic. Like particularly Ebby, the the head honcho, she was across all of the patterns and you'd have this meeting, you know, you're like quarterly catch up about it and should be down the far end of this table of, you know, 20 people and should be like, hang on, go back through slides and be like zoom in on like this miniscule detail. That was the one thing that we hadn't really thought about. We're feeling a bit embarrassed about potentially. And she's like, what's going on there? And you're like, that's just so impressive. And it's nice to know that the the right people are in those positions, I guess. Speaker 3 She's. Speaker 1 I mean, that's, that's, that's Australian model, right? And they have that government architect position. I've long said that New Zealanders sorely lacking someone in that position. Do you see that as being a barrier for the success of a concept like this here? Speaker 2 Would certainly be very curious if we were to roll out a pattern book in New Zealand, like who's going to administer that? Because yeah, if we, if we had to assemble an A body to do that, you know, that's that's a tall order rather than having that institutional knowledge and breadth of experience already sitting there and able to take something up. Speaker 1 And knowing how much local governments struggle to even interpret something as prescribed as the building code comparably across the country. You know, taking on a concept like a pattern, but seems far beyond them. Speaker 3 Made-up what you say in, in SW is that they have, they've created this, the pattern book has its own pathway, so it doesn't have to go through the same rubric as the rest of the buildings because in theory it's already been through it. So those buildings were developed right the way through all of the mechanical and fire services engineering as all part of that package so that you don't get all the way through that and find the building can't be built as it's been drawn. But what I was gonna say about them, you know, the Ministry of Works, some of our best architectural fabric in New Zealand is from the administrative boards. And so, you know, the, the people who apply for those roles, they still come so much down to individual people and the training, I guess having people with an artificial background in those roles who kind of know what they're looking at. And I think that's partly why we were selected for the pattern book. And then also this fellowship is is because the people who are evaluating the proposals are absolutely, you know, immersed in what we're all trying to solve. Yeah, so we have a kind of common language and I think that that's something that broadly speaking, the public and the architecture community struggle a bit to to kind of get onto the same page. And the problem solving aspect of being an architect is something that people are trying to get that message across now. Like we're not actually fashion designers, even though fashion designers can put pockets in or not, you know, there's problem solving the too. So, you know, we're kind of trying to use that aspect of architecture to, yeah, make a city a really great place to live. Speaker 1 I talk about communication quite a lot about the architecture, communication around the architectural community and what we do as proficient. How do you guys see communicating your concept and this idea as it develops to the public? Because I can see that being not a struggle, but it's definitely a barrier is how do you get out this information? Because there's always going to be that slight standoffishness being like, ohh, architects have done. It sort of inherently going to be expensive. Speaker 2 I think both of us have fairly allergic to the way most architects speak about their work. And it tends to be a very pretentious, esoteric sort of language surrounding it. And it's almost like, you know, I think the provision is often guilty of kind of hiding behind language and as sort of artistic facade to, to hide the fact that maybe there's not that much going on at all. And so we, we talk about, we should talk about things. Speaker 1 I like this is good. This is just. Speaker 2 Can talk really plainly about what a building's doing like yeah, why it's good what the elements are just laid out and. And try and just speak and in layman's terms, because the things that we're talking about aren't that complex and you don't need to, you know, muddy the waters further. Speaker 3 I'm actually teaching at the university at the moment, and I think a lot of that language comes from the university. You know, this is a group of 4th year design students and I haven't heard anyone say door or window. And you know, these are the basic elements which we designed. So and, and the the scary word cost. You know, one of the students asked me what they would do, what I would, you know, how I would push them like, well, ask you to run a cost leans over this thing. And then you'll find out, you know, that actually when we start building real buildings, we have to think about these very practical pieces that make a good building. And so I think yeah, we're we're really interested in using no smoke and mirrors. But an answer to your question, I would like to build 1 of course, just get out there and like build 1 myself. Speaker 2 The quickest way. Speaker 3 Yeah. And so I don't, I haven't put any thought into how you would fund that. Maybe you could get a real great grant that's like, yeah, I can find you a couple of $1,000,000 buildings. But you know, of course building 1 would be the the true test. Speaker 2 Which is what they're doing with the pattern book, which is interesting. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I was going to say that you've been your guy's model throughout your careers. Really. Isn't that build it to prove it basically? Speaker 2 Yeah, we often talk about that. It's like, ohh, good. Would we want to be like a big practise so we can do lots of other stuff? And it's like, not really. I'd rather just provide a bunch of really thoughtful precedents. And if that shifts the the dial a little bit and that type of thinking becomes more common, then that's a job well done. Speaker 3 The Green Party. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 Well, I mean, I don't know about you guys. I just wanna make better buildings and make architecture accessible for for everybody. And I think, you know, if we can succeed in doing that, which your model so evidently couldn't do in, you know, kudos. Heads off, job done, architecture clocked. Is there anything else you want to sign off on? You know, ambitions, plans. We've talked about what does this look like in a year? The fellowship period is successful and the outcome successful. You know what's your dream 10 years down the track? Speaker 2 10 years. Speaker 1 Yeah, give us, give us 10. Speaker 3 Years, yeah. So we were listening to what was it the detail, something on made in New Zealand and they were talking about how in the 50s was it there was like the government provided 30% of home loans. So my major pressing concerns are that value is lower than cost to build at the moment and I don't know what we will do about that. Speaker 2 Wage inflation. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, just leave the cost of housing where it is and triple everyone salaries and it would be a much, much happier country. Speaker 3 Nice. Maybe that's just people building their own houses. Speaker 1 People building their. Speaker 2 Own houses? Clearly not something we have much say. Speaker 1 That's a good sign off. Awesome guys. Well, thank you very much for your time. Speaker 4 Yeah. Thanks so much. Speaker 2 Likewise. Speaker 1 Good luck with the research. Speaker 2 Really excited because actually do it rather than just talking. Speaker 1 About doing it, just talk about it. Yeah. So actually that's a good point. When do you when do you guys hit play? Speaker 2 I guess once we've officially got it, yeah, I think you have to start within six months of being told you get it and you have to finish within a year. But I imagine we'll just get stuck into it. Speaker 3 Yeah, we're already stuck and. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's right.