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Housing needs more than a band-aid solution

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by Bob Burnett

Systematic change is needed to tackle respiratory disease in New Zealand

With the Government recently allocating 40 million dollars to help fix rheumatic fever linked to substandard housing, changing the way
we build is becoming more and more critical.

Housing needs more than a band-aid solution
Barrys Bay

According to Asthma Respiratory Foundation NZ, we have the second highest rate of asthma deaths in high-income countries, with
respiratory diseases affecting approximately 700,000 people in New Zealand, costing around seven billion dollars a year.
Bob Burnett Architecture director, Bob Burnett advocates for systematic change in the industry towards building healthy, sustainable homes.
He says things like curtains, floor coverings and bedding mentioned in the government’s recent funding proposal isn’t addressing the problem.
“It’s a band-aid solution. When it comes to retrofitting unhealthy homes, a case by case detailed analysis is needed to come up with a home specific, holistic deep retrofit plan.”
A successful renovation needs to be a complete upgrade in order to achieve the right results. While budget requirements could mean that a
renovation might need to be staged over time,

Bob is currently embarking on a significant renovation of his hillside home in conjunction with earthquake repairs to improve future resilience.
This “SuperReno” aims to improve the house as much as possible within the budget utilising innovative design and building techniques following international best practise.

Housing needs more than a band-aid solution

Top five Broad Oaks
SuperReno features:

  1. Triple glazed, Weathershield Warmcore
    thermally broken aluminium windows
    recessed into the timber framed walls. The
    main living areas have been prioritised and
    the windows are powder coated to match the
    existing that in future could also be replaced.
    Windows are one of the most important parts
    of a renovation as it is the weakest point of
    the house thermally.
  2. External Rockwool rigid insulation added
    to the outside of walls. Rockwool is new
    product to New Zealand and is made from
    natural materials.
  3. Edge insulation to the concrete slab to reduce
    thermal bridging helping to avoid heat losses.
  4. A warm roof added on top of the existing
    membrane roof will improve thermal
    performance.
  5. Whole house heat recovery ventilation; this
    can be quite tricky for renovations but it a
    crucial component of a healthy home to
    ensure good air quality and moisture control.
Housing needs more than a band-aid solution

Bob is one of the founders of the Superhome Movement, which educates homeowners and industry professional alike about building
healthy, resilient, sustainable homes. Bob Burnett Architecture will be releasing a series of blogs on the Broad Oaks SuperReno.

Healthy Home Design Guide takes aim at ‘crap quality’

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by Bob Burnett

“NZ’s building standards are over 20 years behind; and it’s making us sick.”

Healthy Home Design Guide takes aim at 'crap quality'
Designing the right way: This three-bedroom house was designed by Superhome Movement co-founder Bob Burnett. It has a compact footprint and solar panels for the hot water and underfloor heating systems.

That comment by Damien McGill of the Superhome Movement, sums up the reasons behind the launch of the Healthy Home Guide on November 24, 2020.

“The problem is exacerbated due to the current New Zealand Building Code being used by over 95 per cent of the industry as the standard to target, rather than the legal minimum requirement,” McGill told Stuff in the weeks preceding the launch.

Check out the full Stuff article highlighting the Healthy Home Design Guide released 24 November 2020:

The project leader says producing the guide was expected to take 18 months, but the team went all out to finish it in seven months, despite Covid restrictions. With input from more than 70 professionals around the country, the guide looks to banish cold, damp and mouldy homes by improving design and construction standards.

“We also have to stop designing 300 square-metre homes with a fourth or fifth bedroom that we really don’t need. Instead, we just need quality; something warm, dry and resilient.

“Money spent on large houses that just meet minimum building standards, which require considerable heating, would be better spent on building smaller, sustainable houses, that are airtight, with thermally broken door and window joinery installed in the right place.”

The Superhome movement wants our houses to provide the best living environments possible, with houses that “stand strong, are resilient, durable, and efficient in size and cost”.

McGill says the guide provides recommendations for healthy, resilient, low-carbon homes that are simple to achieve, and don’t require an arduous and costly rating or certification.

A healthy home is described as one that has high IEQ (indoor environment quality). This is determined from four key metrics: thermal comfort (temperature), visual comfort, acoustic comfort (noise transfer) and indoor air quality.”

The Superhome movement wants our houses to provide the best living environments possible, with houses that “stand strong, are resilient, durable, and efficient in size and cost”.

McGill says the guide provides recommendations for healthy, resilient, low-carbon homes that are simple to achieve, and don’t require an arduous and costly rating or certification.

A healthy home is described as one that has high IEQ (indoor environment quality). This is determined from four key metrics: thermal comfort (temperature), visual comfort, acoustic comfort (noise transfer) and indoor air quality.”

McGill says our homes can significantly influence our health and wellbeing, sentiments supported by Asthma New Zealand CEO Katheren Leitner, who wrote the foreword for the guide and welcomes it as an encouraging development.

“We can’t keep running away from the inadequacies of the Building Code,”Leitner says. “It simply facilitates the ongoing practice of allowing the worst building you can build, to be done so legally, and this is making us sick.”

Asthma NZ’s mission is a 50 per cent reduction in asthma and COPD hospitalisation by 2029.

“With 87 per cent of our patients living in housing unfit for human habitation we are counting on you to help us achieve this mission,” Leitner says in the forward. “For every year that we achieve this mission we will enable the Ministry of Health to spend half a billion dollars of savings on improving our health system, so we all have access to the medications and treatments we need, when we need it. Nothing else matters when you can’t breathe.”

Healthy Home Design Guide takes aim at 'crap quality'
NZ’s first 10 Homestar Superhome in Church Square, Addington, is another ultra energy-efficient home designed by Bob Burnett. It is also compact and affordable.

HOW WILL CHRISTCHURCHS HOUSING LOOK IN 30 YEARS

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by Bob Burnett
HOW WILL CHRISTCHURCHS HOUSING LOOK IN 30 YEARS
All homes can be healthy for people and planet

Date: 31/10/2020

FULL ARTICLE ON Stuff

Christchurch architectural designer Bob Burnett founded THE SUPERHOME MOVEMENT about five years ago, with an eye on how future housing should be built.

The organisation runs tours showing off homes built to standards significantly above the building code, and lobbies Government to raise standards.

Burnett says New Zealand’s building code is decades outdated and the nation’s housing needs to improve fast.

“Hopefully, in 30 years, we won’t be 30 years behind other parts of the world like we are now. We have got a lot of catching up to do.”

HOW WILL CHRISTCHURCHS HOUSING LOOK IN 30 YEARS

Burnett says Christchurch’s mindset “needs to change” from “pushing out further with subdivisions”.

“It’s not sustainable on a number of levels in Christchurch. It needs to start with urban planning and walkable neighbourhoods. Some road layouts in the new subdivisions are wrong for good housing, sections need a long boundary facing north.”

He says while Christchurch’s urban design rules demand that front doors in multi-home complexes face the street, there are no building code requirement for homes to face the sun.

“A hundred years ago villas were built facing the street, and we’re still doing it. We’re building houses with windows facing south … it’s ridiculous.”

Burnett says another issue is the small-scale nature of Kiwi home building. He points to group home builders acting as retailers while contractors – “anyone with a cellphone, a ute and a dog” – do the work.

In contrast, factory-built modular or panellised components have been standard in many countries’ housing for years, he says, increasing efficiency and bringing down costs.

He points to a company in Japan building more homes than New Zealand’s total.

“There’s a lot of research and development. They approach it like they build cars – it’s a lot more sophisticated.

“We are still banging bits of wood together. Possibly, it’s the Kiwi attitude of ‘that’s how we’ve always done it’.

“How do we turn this around? We can show the rest of the world how we can produce zero carbon, energy efficient homes.”

HOW WILL CHRISTCHURCHS HOUSING LOOK IN 30 YEARS
HOW WILL CHRISTCHURCHS HOUSING LOOK IN 30 YEARS

Quality Architecture + Passive House

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by Bob Burnett
Quality Architecture + Passive House

Bob Burnett Architecture is currently working on three certified Passive House standard Superhomes.

So, what is Passive House standard? And how can it help you get the best design and also help solve the climate crisis.

The good news is designing to Passive House standard doesn’t necessarily exclude quality architecture and stunning aesthetics. The Passive House approach is primarily about putting the fabric of the building first to ensure that it only needs a very small amount of heating or cooling to maintain a comfortable temperature. This involves super-insulated walls, floor and roof, while also eliminating thermal bridging and air leakage through the fabric of the building. A high-level of attention to detail is required when considering everything from the form and orientation of the building to proper installation of correctly proportioned high-performance windows. Careful planning is critical to integrate essential services, like a balanced mechanical ventilation heat recovery system (MVHR) within the thermal envelope of the building. Sometimes, during the technical design process, other aspects of the design that have an important influence on the look and feel of a finished home can be lost; such as the treatment of light, spatial awareness or flow, and connection to the outdoors. Bob Burnett Architecture looks to balance thermal performance requirements with the other aspects that create an appealing feel and architectural form.

Quality Architecture + Passive House

Although not all clients wish to go to the extent of certifying to Passive House standard, all Bob Burnett Architecture homes are designed with these considerations and always to Superhome Movement criteria. BBA homes for example often meet or exceed the Passive House airtightness standard of 0.6 air changes per hour, which is confirmed by a blower door air test. This air leakage test is also a good indication of build quality. Certifying and monitoring the finished buildings further validates the performance. It is critical to have the right dedicated team of designers, engineers, builders and tradespeople onboard and communicating well to ensure Passive House targets are achieved.

Passive House will not meet every budget as there is an increased cost to reach this level of specification and construction. Recent research has indicated Passive House costs about 15% more but it is not clear what standard of building was being compared. An innovative architectural home will also cost more than a building company standard home built to building code minimums. When things are new and less common they can cost more, but this will change in time when better standards are normalised. To suit varied budgets, Bob Burnett Architecture has three levels of specification for a residential project; good, better and best with best being Passive House level and good still far exceeding building code minimums. With certified Passive House projects currently under way it was found that the BBA general methodology and best level of specification was already about 98% of the way to achieving certified Passive House. However, certain shapes and sizes are inherently easier to certify than others so this can influence the complexity and specification required for each individual project.

Quality Architecture + Passive House
Houses with a small footprint and volume can be more challenging to certify than larger, two storey houses with a very simple shape, such as a square.

Last year saw heightened awareness around climate change and a recent study by BRANZ identified that new homes produce five times the amount of carbon as required to meet the Paris Agreement. Low-carbon building includes the reduction of both operational and embodied carbon. Passive House can reduce operational carbon while BRANZ has released a Life Cycle Assessment tool called LCA Quick which enables assessment of embodied carbon to help reduce the impact of the building process. The combination of these and other tools gives the potential to solve carbon emissions created by the built environment. Another useful rating tool for sustainable housing is Homestar. Bob Burnett has been a Homestar assessor since 2012 and was responsible for NZ’s first 10 star home in 2015. Rating tools are helping to create awareness about important considerations but don’t go far enough. There is no substitute for careful integrated design thinking. The uptake of various certification schemes has been slow but hopefully will get a boost as ANZ bank has recently introduced a Healthy Home Loans Package for Homestar rated homes offering up to 1% off your mortgage rate.

A Bob Burnett Architecture home provides the best of both worlds. The best possible living experience in an attractive, unique feeling space while incorporating award-winning sustainable design thinking, optimum health, comfort and earthquake resilience providing peace of mind that you are future-proofed for our changing climate.

SBN award winner urges target 100,000 homes be Sustainable and Healthy

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by bbarcadmin

SBN award winner urges target 100,000 homes be Sustainable and Healthy

Bob Burnett has won the Sustainability Superstar Award at the 2017 NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards held in Auckland on 30 November.
The NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards are New Zealand’s longest-standing sustainability awards. Now in their 15th year, they recognise and celebrate success in sustainability.
The Sustainability Superstar Award, sponsored by Westpac, celebrates a person who inspires and leads others to make a difference. It is presented to someone who has gone above and beyond to bring about sustainability change, either within their organisation or in the wider community.
SBN award winner urges target 100,000 homes be Sustainable and Healthy The judges said “Bob is an ardent advocate for energy efficient and sustainable building design. He has shown tireless commitment for 20 years to create better places for the people of New Zealand”. “Having designed and funded the development of New Zealand’s first 10-star Homestar rated homes, he has busted the myth that green building is expensive. Having also founded the Superhome Movement, the judges were impressed with his selfless efforts to normalise energy efficient, sustainable homes through open source sharing of new technologies, design innovations and building techniques. He is a real influencer in the sector.”

SBN award winner urges target 100,000 homes be Sustainable and Healthy

Bob Burnett has urged the Government to make the NZ housing build target closer to the standard of houses in Europe, Japan and North America. Currently NZ has no targets for sustainability but other countries do. Eg. France 2020 ‘net zero energy’ Japan 2020 for commercial buildings and 2030 for homes etc.

“Building houses for New Zealander’s is a priority, but building to the low standards in the current building code is not going to work. Houses that are built to the standards similar to overseas nations are warmer, safer and healthier and needn’t cost much if anything more than current houses IF we adopt modern construction standards for the get go”, said Bob Burnett.

“Houses are required last at least 50 years so ones we build now will be there in 2068 and beyond. There is no excuse for building poor quality code minimum houses, harnessing future generations to a lifetime of massive power bill and health problems. The homes we build today will impact our children and grandchildren. We can easily build proper decent houses and its financially positive, so lets do it.”

AUCKLAND Superhome Movement Meeting

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by Bob Burnett

AUCKLAND Superhome Movement Meeting

Participants and guests welcome, invite industry professionals and clients too.

AGENDA
Introduction – Bob Burnett – the vision for the movement, new tools & resources
Presentations – Building Excellence Group
Discussion – Participation and future events including the Auckland Exemplar Homes Tour

5.30pm 20th June 2017
Venue – Building Excellence Group, 18 Customs Street East Auckland
(opposite Kiwi Bank branch. Downtown Auckland by Britomart train station. Delegates should make their way up the stairs to level 3 (top floor – lift doesn’t work). On level 3 head to end of corridor. Meeting located in the SBN (Sustainable Business Network) office. SBN carved into timber.

Food and Drinks are sponsored by Building Excellence Group

Register Here

AUCKLAND Superhome Movement Meeting

 

 

 

Exemplar Homes Event (every weekend in May)

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by Bob Burnett

Seven of Christchurch’s most innovative and sustainable homes will be opened to the public in May to encourage others to build smarter.

The free Exemplar Homes Tour will allow people to see inside a selection of homes built to showcase sustainable and affordable design.

Exemplar Homes Event (every weekend in May)
People will be able to step inside homes that are among the greenest in New Zealand, homes that have no power bills, homes that collect rainwater, and homes that use solar energy to power their car. At each home people will be able to speak to the designer or builder and learn more about its special features.

The tour, which allows people to visit the homes in any order they want at any time between 11am and 4pm each weekend in May, has been organised by the Superhome Movement in partnership with Christchurch City Council.

“We want people to experience these homes for themselves, see the technology at work and help them to understand that it is possible to build better quality homes at little or no additional cost,” said Christchurch City Council Sustainability Principal Advisor Tony Moore.

“If people are thinking about building new homes we want them to be making informed choices and building healthy, sustainable homes. Hopefully a visit to these seven exemplar homes will help inspire them,” Mr Moore said.

Details of the seven homes that are part of the tour and a map showing their location can be found here.

Exemplar Homes Event (every weekend in May)

QuakeStar

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by bbarcadmin

QuakeStar

We continue to  ensure that Bob Burnett Architecture home owners have the best and most resilient structures for their homes.

The QuakeStar aim is to improve the management of earthquake risk in the residential and property industry by providing owners, tenants, users and the public a basic means to distinguish between buildings on the basis of assessed earthquake performance in terms of safety, damage and repair time.

Using the experience of the Canterbury earthquakes and working with like-minded groups offshore, a building rating system for earthquake performance has been developed. Insurers, builders and owners all benefit from a star rating which provides peace of mind by achieving better and safer buildings with reduced earthquake risk. Quake Star had the backing of the Earthquake Engineering Society and is supported by a range of experts.

Seismic assessments of existing buildings are much more complex than designing a new building. Assessment involves judgement calls for residents, owners, employers,  staff and insurers.  QuakeStar provides better appreciation of safety for levels of seismic events by rating the performance standards for buildings and houses.  For homes this means safer building and also understanding how to limit the need for major repairs in smaller quakes.  For businesses, employee and customer, lower insurance, quicker back in business and less worry.

Bob Burnett Architecture can provide a 1-5 QuakeStar ratings for their projects.

What is Homestar?

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by bbarcadmin

Homestar is the independent tool that rates the performance of New Zealand homes taking into account health, comfort, energy, water, ventilation, waste and other environmental factors.

Homestar is always a part of Bob Burnett Architecture and is being promoted and used  by New Zealand designers and developers to provide reliable, independent assurance to clients and purchasers that a home has attained high standards of health, comfort, sustainability and efficiency.
The Homestar community includes:  the New Zealand Green Building Council – the owner and administrator of Homestar Homestar professionals who are trained and accredited in use of the Homestar tool ¯ owners, developers, builders who are managing and / or marketing registered Homestar projects  Homestar Partners – companies or affiliates who sponsor or partner with Homestar.

The use of social media and meeting to share information and developments, lessons and ideas make

Superhome Movement

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by bbarcadmin

Superhome Movement

The Superhome Movement is a not-for-profit, industry-led group focused on creating transformative change in the New Zealand building industry. The goal of the movement is to raise standards so that all new homes are healthier and more energy efficient, while also promoting environmental, economic, and socially sustainable practices.

In terms of building standards, New Zealand is around 20 years behind other developed countries in the OECD. In fact, almost all houses built today are built to the minimum standard allowed by law (equivalent to a Homestar rating of 3). This is well below what is acceptable in other developed countries where minimum standards are around a Homestar rating of 6 or above. New Zealand has one of the highest childhood asthma rates and childhood poverty rates in the OECD. Our children have 3rd world diseases that are rarely seen in developed countries. It economically and socially makes sense to invest in better houses. In a University of Otago study, it showed that for every dollar spent on housing, it saved $4 on healthcare. We need to update our houses and building codes so that our homes and children are healthy.

The Superhome Movement was founded in response to the Christchurch Earthquakes when Bob Burnett, who co-founded the movement, experienced first-hand the serious health effects sub-standard housing was having on his two young children. Seeing a lack of action by government and council groups inspired him to employ a grassroots, ground up approach to educating residents and industry groups in order to initiate behavioural change in decision making around designing and building warm, healthy homes.

Superhome movement participants are dedicated to helping you get  a new home that will be warm and healthy, use less energy, be affordable, and last longer!

Exemplar Homes tour presentation 2016

The future of NZ Homes

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by bbarcadmin

Kia Ora – You’ve found BB Architecture. Our team designs award winning, affordable, high performance homes & buildings.

Bob Burnett Architecture creates energy efficient, earthquake resistant and smart space design in beautiful stylish buildings fit for purpose.

Based in Christchurch, we work on a range of residential and commercial projects within New Zealand, you can be one of our partners in creating the next generation of houses, and offices. Contact us.

Who are we?

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by bbarcadmin

At Bob Burnett Architecture we are innovative award winning local and international architects and designers. We draw on overseas and local innovation and current best practice to develop structures that are appealing, environmentally sound, high performance homes and buildings. New Zealand house construction has developed slowly, and is still a rough approximation of houses in the 1950s. At Bob Burnett Architecture we aim to bring the advances in heating, power use and better construction to you and all our customers.

“Architecture should be beautiful; in harmony with nature and demonstrate character, and performing as a highly functional, thermally efficient, low energy, safe, healthy, comfortable and fantastic place to live.”

We want you to join us in living more comfortably and sustainably in a Bob Burnett Architectural future home.

Where eco-friendly function meets award winning architectural form

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by bbarcadmin

Since its inception Bob Burnett Architecture has established a reputation for award-winning, high performance hill homes and environmental design. Bob’s own epic home on the Port Hills was a testing bed for innovative sustainability and design ideas that were subsequently incorporated in future designs.

Most designs are a fusion of ideas from the two directors Bob Burnett and Shizuka Yasui which express influence from both Japanese and New Zealand Architecture. When we consider Japanese architecture, we think tranquillity, harmony, natural materials, efficiency and smart detailing. They are the masters of tight spaces, creating the illusion of spaciousness while working with a compact footprint.

The practice’s core philosophies include design for comfort, functionality and delight to provide the best possible living experience; optimizing building performance within the available budget; providing value for money when considering upfront costs, ongoing costs and return investment. It has an affinity for solar and passive house principles and aims to encourage quality over quantity with the belief that if you can master a cleverly designed compact home, then a big budget home is a cinch.#Following the earthquake Bob instigated Quakestar, a rating system for a building’s performance in earthquakes and has also been supportive of Homestar, a 1 to 10 rating tool for energy, health, comfort and environmental attributes.

Bob is a recognised industry spokesperson, who has championed better building standards, some of which are demonstrated in the country’s first 10 Homestar home. This modest size house on a small site was designed as a demonstration project for the SUPERHOME movement. The movement’s focus is on providing the open source sharing of innovative design ideas, technologies and building techniques; connecting experts and leaders in the industry with each other and the wider community.

Founded by Bob and Martin Reilly, SUPERHOME movement is a not-for-profit industry group creating a paradigm shift for home owners, builders and designers, triggering behavioural change in decision making.

At the launch of the SUPERHOME movement and the first 10 Homestar home approximately a year ago, Lianne Dalziel, Mayor of Christchurch, said it was exactly what the Christchurch rebuild needs. The SUPERHOME movement’s activities have led to bigger projects with Bob being engaged as an advisor, then designer, on City Council social housing with several private developers, initiating large multi-unit Eco Village developments with minimum Homestar ratings of 6 and 7 stars. These will be the largest clusters of Homestar 6 and above homes in the country.

Sponsored by the Christchurch City Council and Build Back Smarter, the Exemplar Homes Tour opened up seven houses by various SUPERHOME movement participant companies for the public to view during the weekends of May.

Word of mouth and social media created a ground swell of awareness with approximately 3000 people visiting these Exemplar Homes. The public were able to enjoy and experience these homes first-hand and also be introduced to the techniques required to achieve a warmer, dryer and healthier home.

The interest has been phenomenal with 50 companies now participating in Christchurch, while September 2016 saw the successful launch of the movement in Auckland and Wellington. The Exemplar Homes Tour is already geared up for May 2017 in Christchurch with other cities to be confirmed.

What next?

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Doing business with us

We want to make your project, residential or commercial, an example of design excellence.

Experience and best practice has shown us the way to work is a disciplined focus where we work with you through conception, design and building process.

We’re happy to answer initial questions and introduce ourselves to you, but we’re a busy active group and believe the we must define your needs and requirements and begin your project with a brief. We know that unplanned, unstructured questions and discussion rarely results in the house you want or deserve. We’re busy working for our existing clients to deadlines so we want to establish our working relationship with you right from the start.  Our existing clients appreciate our approach of determining who wants an excellent house or office and who really just wants to talk.  We are aware that if we are diverted by queries and long discussions that won’t lead anywhere it can affect progress for people already committed and working towards a result.

We can meet in person, by Skype or a net meeting system to begin. From there we develop a brief and once that has been agreed we develop plans.

You can pre-pay for a one hour or 90 minute initial consultation for your project.

To organise your first meeting with us use this form which also sets up payment authorisation. The first meeting is only $150 with one of our experienced architectural designers or architects. Further costs are negotiated as we progress. From that first meeting we will be starting the journey to a modern, exciting home with energy efficient and quake resistant design.

 

10 Star Superhome

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The historically low quality of Kiwi housing stock has been confronted by building of the first 9 and 10 Star homes in New Zealand.  

The demonstration project of two adjacent homes in Church Square aimed at showing what is possible and creating public awareness  to destroy the myth it is too expensive to build energy efficient homes. The two exemplar homes 9 and 11 Church Square Addington were originally designed to 9 Star with one rating a perfect 10 on the HomeStar rating scale.  This changed the game and put the challenge out to architects, designers, builders and home buyers to aim higher. Bob Burnett of Bob Burnett Architecture announced the 2015 successes to visitors, media and industry in August 2015.

“What is stunning is energy efficient houses don’t cost more if the designs are designed around energy maintenance from the get go.  The issue is NZ house designs are at best stuck in the 1980s, it’s like everyone is living in houses the equivalent of driving in old Ford Escorts,” said Bob Burnett. “Cost comparisons can be seen in the excellent resources on the NZ Green Building Council website (http://www.nzgbc.org.nz/) where research is shown, and where local architectural projects are highlighted.  We will continue to work with NZGBC and other architects and builders.

“On the back of this we launched NZ Superhomes: with open source sharing of technology, designs, techniques and plans for building homes that don’t have large power bills are healthy and warm.  We want NZ building and architecture to see what can be and get on board.”

The specs are impressive:

  • Zero Power bills- that is in these houses there is no need to buy power, it’s that efficient.
  • Affordability is not only about purchase price but running costs.  Significantly lower ongoing running costs  for both houses make the return on investment in owning them much higher.
  • Both houses feature combined greywater and rainwater systems, with water-efficient plumbing settings
  • Hydronic underfloor heating – incredibly innovative floor systems that circulate monitor and manage power for maximum comfort and optimal energy use.
  • Slab -edge insulation -eliminating the loss of energy from flooring that is standard Kiwi practice.  This simple innovation is a major difference used by Bob Burnett Architecture.
  • Quake resilience through design innovations and lessons developed in Christchurch and in California and Japan.
  • Optimal use of space, in New Zealand houses and cars have developed the same energy inefficient obesity with expansion in houses that consume and waste energy.  The building design and utilisation of space build on Japanese expertise and clever Kiwi design.
  • Wall and corner bracing – strengthening the thermal envelope  to retain heat and resist quakes
  • Solar wall ventilation- Energy efficient lighting – not just LED lighting but lights that follow use and also reduce lighting waste and pollution.

Visit the homes by making an appointment with Bob Burnett Architecture and see for yourself what the homes of the future will have to look like, and feel the difference.

Photovoltaic solar panels

Superwalls- super-insulation, designed to eliminate thermal bridging, stronger, at least 140mm framing, airtight – the best walls and destined to revolutionise the construction of substandard walls used in most Kiwi houses.

— ends

At Bob Burnett Architecture we have always said we are at the leading edge of creating the homes New Zealand deserves.  Energy efficient dwellings which are examples of best practice in design and construction are a critical part of our method.

The team has  been at the forefront of excellent design and building excellent houses.

We built New Zealand’s first 8, 9 and 10 Star Houses.  Rated on the 1-10 scale we have led the awareness and expertise in creating houses that can return power to the network and ensure comfortable healthy living.

The 10 Star case files

Church Square Addington Christchurch, 2014/15

Specifications: A 140m2 two storey three bedroom dwelling with two spacious high standard bathrooms and attached carport.
This is NewZealand’s first 10 homestar rated home; it needed to tick all the boxes to score a perfect 10 and also has a 5 Star Lifemark standard.
Super-insulated and super-energy efficient with no power bill, an environmentally sound dwelling that is very healthy, warm, dry, comfortable and also attractive, liveable, incredibly practical, and delightful to live in. There are over 30 innovations that are not common in typical NZ homes.
The ground floor accommodates a large living room utilising passive solar principles, with the centrally located stair separating the entry, kitchen/dining and utility areas, like toilet, laundry and walk in pantry. The attached car port provides covered rear access. The stair landing has space for an office desk and storage each side. The Master bedroom has a large ensuite, good storage and access to a small balcony. Efficient space planning eliminated waste space, for example no hallway. The home relates very well to the Church Square environment.
Designed as an exemplar home and demonstration project for the SUPERHOME movement providing open source sharing of design, technology and information for public and the industry.
The idea has been to create awareness by sharing ideas through a network of industry leaders in home design and construction on how best to build compact but spacious, clever high rated homes for the mass market that provide the best possible value in terms of affordability and ongoing cost of ownership and return on investment.

Universal Design

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Universal Design

A home designed for life 

Universal design is about designing environments for inclusivity and independence that are accessible to all people of all abilities, at any stage of life. Specifically, it ‘describes the concept of designing housing features to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, or status in life’*. A universal design approach recognises human diversity and designs for all life scenarios, including pregnancy, childhood, injury, disability and old age.

All Bob Burnett Architecture homes are designed based on the principles of universal design and several are lifemark rated up to 5 Star standard.   They include level entry access and optimum dimensions designed to be usable and safe for people of all ages and stages.

Enjoy the benefits of living in a spatially aware home that’s been designed for life!

Homestar

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We create energy-efficient houses. Better to live in, better value in the market, and better for the environment. Homestar is the New Zealand Green Building Councils (NZGBC) 1 to 10 rating tool for energy and other resources, water, waste minimisation, materials, renewable energy and other sustainability considerations.   

Better by design

Bob Burnett designed NZ’s first 7 Homestar rated home in 2011 and went on to do 8 and 9 star designs finally achieving the first 10 Homestar rated home 2015. NZGBC describe 10 Homestar as world-leading standard. Bob Burnett and the team are at the heart of the movement to improve New Zealand housing construction to ensure the advances in modern homes around the world are included here.  Most NZ houses build to code are only 3 or 4 star energy performers, but for often no more you can have a house which can operate with a quarter the energy consumption of other houses and for up to 10-15 per cent more in construction cost you can be energy self-sufficient AND earthquake resistant.

The New Zealand general approach is building houses that are simply better replications of houses from 50 years ago, ignoring the vast improvements which are commonplace or required in parts of Europe, the Nordic countries and North America.  Bob Burnett Architecture says we all deserve better and we start with each house we build now.