HIVE Home Innovation Village was facilitated by PrefabNZ as a way to showcase prefabricated housing solutions to Cantabrians who lost their homes in the 2010-11 earthquakes. PrefabNZ spent nine months alongside Christchurch City Council (CCC) assessing eight potential sites to secure the best location for the pop-up village. The Canterbury Agricultural Park proved to be the most suitable site as it was flat, partially fenced, visible from a busy road, and already known as a display site. The CCC granted approval for HIVE in December 2011, with the resource consent allowing up to 10 houses on the site until February 2014.

HIVE aimed to provide a low-stress and accessible option for Cantabrians to view a number of dwellings in one space, while also serving to alter people’s misconceptions of prefabricated housing. HIVE aimed to show how prefab housing can be architecturally attractive, affordable, high-quality, quick in delivery and more sustainable than traditional construction. Most of the HIVE houses were collaborations between architects, housing companies and manufacturers, many of which were local Canterbury based companies. These collaborations resulted in high-quality, and affordable architecturally designed homes.

February 2019 HOW to Prefab

HIVE Home Innovation VillageHIVE was New Zealand’s inaugural Home Innovation Village. HIVE was inspired by Canterbury’s desperate need for well-designed homes that are quick to build, strong and affordable. In response to the devastating earthquakes. Five years since HIVE disbanded, the same home innovations can contribute to New Zealand’s current affordable housing shortage.

HIVE DESCRIPTION HIVE AIM

2011-2014

HIVE - Home Innovation Village, Canterbury Agricultural Park

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“HIVE showed Cantabrians that by using prefabrication technology new homes can be affordable, personal, and well-designed. House hunters could experience up to ten completely different styles of homes. Many of the houses at HIVE retailed between $200k to $300k, and all of the houses offered variations or could be adapted to meet individual preferences and needs.”

- PrefabNZ CEO, Pamela Bell

HIVE HOME INNOVATION VILLAGE

The Smart House

RAkaia CUBE / Lego House

The design uses locally sourced materials where possible, such as oils and stains, low or zero Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) water-based paints, and engineered timber products such as I-joists.

A novel aspect to the Smart House is the option for customers to extend the house with an additional bedroom pod, master living pod or garage pod, on top of the base price of $220,000

The structural panel elements of the CUBE consist of the concrete floor, concrete walls and the internal Metra panel walls - all of which are prefabricated. Concrete was the chosen material for its thermal capabilities, speed of construction and engineered strength.

Wilson + Hill Architects

Falcon Construction

Laing Homes (PrefabNZ Member)

Allied Concrete

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Laing Homes, a family owned Christchurch business, made a bold move into the world of architect-designed prefab housing with its Smart House. Through collaboration, Laing Homes, with Wilson & Hill Architects, developed a complete building using panel technology that was suitable for transport and seismic activity. The sloping coved gable roof was specifically designed for strength during transportation, with a six degree pitch, standard box gutter, roof trusses, and long-run steel roof. Smart House is engineered to withstand three times the snow and wind loadings of the Building Code for Christchurch, enabling its structural integrity in harsh-climate locations such as Tekapo and Central Otago.

The Smart House is notable for its clean and distinct aesthetic lines. The complete building construction of the house utilises the Metra panel (PrefabNZ Partner) building system of reconstituted timber panel floors, walls and ceilings. These panels only need paint-finish on the interior, which offers increased durability.

Falcon Construction and Allied Concrete developed the Rakaia CUBE as a direct response to the Canterbury earthquakes. David Reid and Mark Tutty, formerly of David Reid Homes, started Falcon Construction to contribute to the rebuild of Christchurch. In collaboration with Allied Concrete, they developed the CUBE, an earthquake engineered precast volumetric concrete system.

The basic CUBE structure is 32m² and can connect to other volumes, or pods, both horizontally and vertically. This allows the units to be arranged in a floor plan that suits the clients living situation. Sophie Savill of Falcon Construction commented,

“The term ‘lego’ best describes Falcon’s CUBE as it refers to the versatility of the product in being able to stack on top of each other or alongside each other.”

The combined structure of multiple pods can be engineered to construct anything from a single-level residential home to a multi-level commercial building. The pods can also be disassembled and reassembled in different locations.

prefabnz.com

For more information on The Smart House visit:prefabnz.com/Projects/Detail/hive

For more information on Rakaia CUBE visit:prefabnz.com/Projects/Detail/hive

designed as a home with “generous room sizes, appointments, and proportions”. Andre has an insatiable appetite for the design of prefabricated buildings and thrives on the challenge to “find an extraordinary solution to an ordinary brief” in order to meet the needs of any discerning house-hunter on a non-specific site.

HIVE HOME INNOVATION VILLAGE

PARK TERRACE

High Performance House

keithhayhomes.co.nz

beaconpathway.co.nz

The fast offsite build allows clients to remain in their previous home during construction, meaning clients only need to seek accommodation while the site is being cleared as the house is assembled.

Keith Hay Homes (PrefabNZ Member)

New Zealand Steel (PrefabNZ Member)

InsulPro

Architex (PrefabNZ Member)

Frametek-RFS (PrefabNZ Member)Resene (PrefabNZ Member)

Fletcher AluminiumBeacon Pathway

Salmond Architecture (PrefabNZ Member)

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The Park Terrace House by Keith Hay Homes and Architex was launched for the first time at HIVE. Establishing ‘affordable architecture,’ this home is the result of an alliance between a long established housing provider and a leading New Zealand (NZ) architect.

The new addition to Keith Hay’s existing range of homes offers a panel-based solution which balances attractive features with the right price. New materials and design details have been developed in this solution to improve the perception of prefab housing. The Park Terrace House has opened up a new housing category for Keith Hay customers and extends to offer a potential crossover to their other transportable houses in their Classic and Coastal design range. The house is constructed from timber frame and trusses and is transported to site as a compelte building in two halves.

Architect Andre Hodgskin, of Architex, agrees that the perfectly symmetrical Park Terrace House is in particular

The High Performance House established Warmframe, an innovative new building system, with Salmond Architecture’s High Performance Houses’ design and sustainable technologies. The prefabricated house highlights the benefits of offsite construction with lower building costs, speed in build and quality. The house is warm, healthy, energy and water-efficient, and has low running costs.

The Warmframe system uses insulated steel framing and double-glazing in a prefabricated wall panel. The combination of products creates a wall system which significantly exceeds the Building Code minimums. The house has been designed using the High Performance Houses’ adaptable building system. This allows clients to customise their new home, choosing from combinations of pavilions which link with a range of cladding options, roof type, and fit-out.

The High Performance House takes only 10 weeks to be built offsite and is then delivered to site and assembled rapidly.

prefabnz.com

For more information on Park Terrace visit:

For more information on High Performance House visit:

HIVE HOME INNOVATION VILLAGE

Toi Toi House

Waipa0a House

The Hybrid Homes and Living housing design solutions have features that repeatedly exceed Building Code requirements. The Toi Toi is a two-bedroom 100m² home which adopts passive solar design with total thermal efficiency, including heat sinks for natural heating, natural cross-ventilation, and sun-shading features.

This house model was the most affordable and most commercially successful house demonstrated at HIVE in Christchurch. Almost twenty of the Waipaoa houses were sold from the showhouse at Canterbury Agricultural Park over the two-and-a-half year period that HIVE was open.

EKOKITHybrid Homes and Living

ModuleNZBainbridge Homes

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Hybrid Homes and Living was established in 2004 based on a passion and need for sustainable, eco-friendly, self-sufficient and future-proofed housing. Their aim is to design aesthetically pleasing homes which are built smarter. The homes are healthy to live in, energy-efficient and designed with concern for the environment.

The Hybrid EKOKIT range was designed to be flexible, sustainable and within the price range of ordinary New Zealanders. The standard designs can be altered in the initial design phase by relocating rooms in a customised arrangement to suit the client and site.

The EKOKIT range, including the Toi Toi home demonstrated at HIVE, are constructed with pre-nailed frames and trusses which are prefabricated from local timber in Nelson and a Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) floor plate. The frames are shipped to site for assembly by a nominated licensed builder, with two further material shipments to follow for the complete EKOKIT build.

Waipaoa House was a collaboration between ModuleNZ and Bainbridge Homes, now trading under the name ModuleNZ Canterbury.

ModuleNZ homes are suitable for a range of cost-effective situations, particularly for new or first homes, baches, farm workers’ accommodation or an investment property.

The Waipaoa is part of ModuleNZ’s Classic series and has a pitched roof, three bedrooms, an ensuite, a large bathroom, and open-plan living areas with a separate laundry. A carport can also be included, as in the demonstration house at HIVE.

The Waipaoa has been designed for speed of build. All of the external timber wall panels arrive on site pre-framed and pre-clad from the Grove Homes factory in Wellington. Prefabrication enables the average build time on-site to be eight weeks from start to finish.

prefabnz.com

For more information on Toi Toi House visit:homestylegreen.com/ekokit/

For more information on Waipaoa House visit:modulenz.co.nz