The Greener Way to Go: A Conversation with Matthew Cutler-Welsh

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Wondering how you can stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of sustainable architecture? Join us as we sit down with Matthew Cutler-Walsh, a leading expert in green building practices, for a deep dive into the rapidly changing landscape of sustainable building in New Zealand. Matthew sheds light on the recent H1 regulation updates, the enthusiastic support from industry professionals like Ben Nansett of MPB Builders, and the tireless advocacy efforts in Parliament. We'll unpack the surging Homestar registrations and the transition towards voluntary schemes, laying down the groundwork for meeting ambitious carbon reduction targets.

Tired of homes that overheat or lack proper ventilation? This episode tackles the critical gaps in New Zealand's Building Code around these pressing issues. Discover how Homestar's guidelines aim to mitigate overheating and improve ventilation through smart design and mechanical systems. Matthew shares personal experiences and expert insights on the benefits and potential challenges of various ventilation systems, underscoring the necessity of adequate home ventilation standards to ensure healthier living spaces.

Curious about the future of high-performance homes in the market? We explore the mounting demand for sustainable design and the hurdles that architects and builders face. Matthew offers practical advice on simplifying building designs for cost-efficiency and sustainability, the power of mid-build open homes as a marketing tool, and the game-changing role of energy modeling tools in achieving stellar Homestar ratings. Tune in to hear about groundbreaking projects, the promising built-to-rent sector, and how Matthew's podcast ventures are steering the industry toward a greener future. Don't miss this insightful discussion that promises to inspire and inform anyone passionate about sustainable architecture.

You can catch more of Matthew's expertise on his other podcast ventures, Homestyle Green (https://homestylegreen.com/) and The Passive House Podcast (https://passivehouseaccelerator.com/podcast)

Chapters:
0:01 - Sustainable Architecture and Green Building Practices
11:07 - Improving Building Code Gaps for Ventilation
24:19 - Market Demand and High Performance Homes
30:05 - Building Code Compliance and Efficiency
41:17 - Effective Design for Efficient Buildings
54:51 - Achieving High Homestar Ratings in Buildings
1:04:11 - Building Industry Podcast Collaboration

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Episode Transcript

Sam Brown (00:01):
Welcome back to the Design Principles podcast For
all the registered architectlisteners out there.
We'll be getting the pot up onthe NZRAB CPD portal to lodge
for points, so keep an eye outfor that pretty exciting stuff.
On today's episode, we welcomethe man on a mission to help
people make a better place tolive, matthew Cutler-Walsh.

(00:22):
Matthew is a prominent figurein the realm of sustainable
architecture and green buildingpractices, serving as a key
member of the New Zealand GreenBuilding Council and as a
certified Passive Houseconsultant.
Matthew is no stranger to thepodcast format, being the host
of podcasts such as HomestyleGreen and the Passive House

(00:44):
podcast, where he sharesinsights on energy efficient
design and the importance ofenvironmentally friendly
construction.
We're stoked to have him on toshare his wealth of knowledge
and passion for creating a moresustainable future.
We hope you enjoy.
I think a pretty good place tostart Matthew would be.

(01:15):
I know personally there's beena bit of movement around with
the recent H1 stuff and a bit ofadvocating to Parliament in the
last week.
How did that go?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (01:28):
It's ongoing.
It's been quite good from ourend that the Minister has been
receptive, at least seems to bereceptive and is keen to listen
to various points of view and iskeen to listen to various
points of view.
There's obviously a lot ofsupport and a whole range of

(01:50):
comments, particularly onLinkedIn, which I think was
reflective of the initialfeedback of H1, was it two or
three years ago?
Yeah, the consultation was very, very positive and that
reflected that sentiment isstill there.
So at this point I guess we'llsee.
Yeah, I mean, some of theresponse has been positive, but

(02:14):
the proof will be in action.

Sam Brown (02:17):
Yeah, I know.
Oh sorry, Ben, I was just goingto say I know that Ben Nanset
from MPB Builders who I think Ithrew in the deep end a little
bit to go along and sort of talkfrom the point of view of you
know the builder's point of view.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (02:34):
No well, andrew Eagles was stoked because
he said, oh, this great buildercame along and he said well,
you know how do you feel aboutthe sustainability thing and
like a lot of builders, he'spretty open to not say what he
thought.
And I love hearing that storyof a builder who is initially

(02:55):
sceptical of high performance orwhether it's passive house,
homestar, whatever, and thengets to do a project and then is
just all in boots and all yeah,and I think he embodies that
quite well.
You know, it's really now he'shad the opportunity to work on a
project like that, can reallysee the benefits of it.
And you know we can talk aboutit as much as we like, but

(03:16):
there's nothing like having abuilder say those things.

Sam Brown (03:20):
Yeah, I think that's a pretty good place to kind of
start the conversation, bothfrom an architect and a design
point of view and then also justa general construction industry
point of view.
I mean, it's a slowly shiftingconcept, this green building or
sustainable building.
I tend to try and stay from theword sustainable because I

(03:46):
slandered it in a previouspodcast episode, so I've got to
check myself a little bit.
But yeah, I mean it'd beinteresting to know from your
point of view, like what is theuptake?
How have you seen this sort ofarea evolve?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (03:56):
I guess so homestar was launched in 2011
and the first iteration and itsort of ticked along.
I was at the green buildingcouncil at the time and I left
just before we reached our 100thproject and that was about
three years in to homestar and Iused to joke when I came back

(04:19):
um, nearly three years ago nowfor my second time around at the
green building council.
Sometimes we would get 100registrations in a morning.
That's the change that we'veseen this sort of exponential
growth in interest over thatperiod of time.
A lot of that was driven overthe last three or four years by
kind of order.
So last year we did aroundabout 5,000 dwelling

(04:44):
registrations just in that yearand, to put that into context,
we got right up to recordnumbers of overall building
consents last year, touching on50,000 across the whole country.
Now Shama Bill's done a fewreally good presentations this

(05:05):
year and he points out that notall of those buildings that are
consented will end up gettingbuilt.
So there's a bit of clawbackthere.
But if we assume around about40,000 homes being built across
New Zealand each year, if we'reachieving around that sort of
5,000 mark of dwellingregistrations, then that's

(05:30):
getting up towards a reasonablemarket penetration and with that
comes brand recognition, whichis really important because
we're still voluntary in NewZealand, we're still other than
a lot of what has been kaiingorder has had some obligations
in place and one or two othersmall pockets.
It's largely voluntary.

Sam Brown (05:51):
So to have that uplift in demand from a
voluntary scheme is a reallyreally positive move from our
end, sort of saying that there'sabout 40,000, 50,000 to 40,000
building consents registeredlast year and of those 5,000
homes are approximately.
What's the sort of level ofpenetration that we need to see?

(06:15):
Has the New Zealand GreenBuilding Council done any sort
of analysis on the level ofpenetration that we need to see
to really start to see a changein the built environment in New
Zealand and things like thedemand on power reduce, the
overall performance of homesincrease, you know, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (06:34):
So carbon is probably one of the best
place contexts for that, becausethat is becoming, it's going to
become more and more of theoverarching metric because it
incorporates embodied carbon andoperational carbon, so carbon
equivalents.
And we need to go further.

(06:58):
We need to go way, way further,because even our really
efficient buildings are stillnot really hitting the targets
that some very smart people puttogether that were the sort of
they figured out what a1.5-degree house would look like
.
So if we were to achieve ourobligations as a country to stay

(07:22):
within our emissions budget asa country, to stay within our
emissions budget, to stayglobally within that 1.5 degree,
which we've kind of alreadyexceeded anyway, but we still
have some pretty significantfinancial obligations as a
country to minimise ouremissions.
We're about five times overthat target with our standard
building practices at the moment.

(07:43):
So we need to drastically reduceboth the embodied carbon and
operational carbon of all ourhouses.
So in some ways it's great forme to be positive, as a sort of
because it's my job to get outthere and sell Homestar and just
say you know we're doing a lotand we are achieving a lot, but
we need to achieve a lot, lotmore.

(08:04):
We also have a huge number ofexisting buildings which can add
to that, particularly on theoperational side, and some
really great work's been done.
I don't know if you've seen ortaught to Professor Michael Jack
down at Otago in Dunedin.
Do you know of his work at all?

Sam Brown (08:26):
No.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (08:29):
He's done some really great modeling work
on the New Zealand grid,basically looking at what it
would look like if we convertedevery house in New Zealand to a
passive house and how that wouldreduce the peak demand of the
national grid.
So as well as reducing ouroverall energy demand, that's

(08:51):
important for emissions, butwhat's also really important for
infrastructure and forminimising those days when we're
at risk of not having enoughpower, that's all about reducing
the peak demand.
And he's done these curves ofsort of varying degrees of going
up the scale of Homestar toHomestar 10, ultimately to

(09:15):
Passive House, and that's reallya great way of reducing those
peak demands.
So I don't know if there's a Ican't really answer your
question in terms of a specificnumber or where we need to be in
terms of a tipping point formarket uptake for Homestar.
I think we're getting close tothat from a market awareness

(09:37):
point of view, but we need to gomuch, much further from an
overall emissions perspective.

Gerard Dombroski (09:43):
Matthew, for those of us who are unfamiliar
with the Green Building Counciland what it is that you do, is
it essentially, like you guysare, high level, eye on the
prize and then helping peoplehave like a baseline or a level
to reach in order to achievesome of these bigger goals of
reducing carbon?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (10:04):
Yeah, so that's a good point.
I I assume, um, that peopleknow, but but many people don't
know.
Uh, so we're not a council.
That's for the starting point.
Even though it's in our name,we're not part of a territorial
authority.
We are one of about 70affiliates of the World Green
Building Council around theworld.

(10:25):
We work quite closely with theGreen Building Council of
Australia, and all of the greenbuilding councils around the
world are very similar in thatthey offer tools and also they
do a lot of advocacy work andeducation.
But our primary function herein New Zealand is providing
mostly voluntary tools forimproving the environmental

(10:46):
performance of buildings and forpeople to promote buildings on
the basis of that certification.
So we provide design tools, butalso a pathway and a
verification of actual builtperformance.

(11:07):
And how I pitch Homestarspecifically is to fill in the
gaps of the building code,because the way I look at the
New Zealand building code rightnow, there's a whole bunch of
just black holes and things likeoverheating, for example, which
is a really important issueissue, and a lot of our houses

(11:28):
are now overheating.
We're experiencing that moreand more and there's absolutely
nothing in the New ZealandBuilding Code to prevent that.
So you can have a completelycode-compliant house right now,
and as long as it has got enoughinsulation to keep it warm in
winter, it's going to be fineand there's nothing to prevent

(11:48):
that house from overheating.
And that's just one area.
There's a bunch of others andthat's the reason we exist is to
fill in some of those gaps.

Sam Brown (11:58):
That overheating thing is quite interesting and
it's a bit of an overheatingissue as well as maybe a
misunderstanding or anover-insulation response is
probably the best way of lookingat it.
I've heard of situationsparticularly down in Queenstown
with a lot of the newdevelopment down in Hanley's
Farm there where they'veessentially got leaky home 2.0,

(12:21):
but nothing's coming from theoutside in, it's generating
within the wall framing and sothey're having these roofs that
are like dripping and walls thatare dripping but no water is
not penetrating, it's just beinggenerated within the home and
that's pretty concerning problemdown there.
I don't know if it's the caseanywhere else in the country,
but that's you know.

(12:42):
That really harkens back tothat issue of overheating and
therefore high moisture and dewpoints and things like that.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (12:48):
It certainly will be, and in some
respects Auckland's worsebecause our relative humidity is
higher.
So in the recent analysis thatJason Quinn did, using some
dynamic modelling of FRSIthermal bridge calculations, it
actually flipped some of theassumptions on its head where we

(13:11):
used to think of Queenstownbeing the worst case for
internal moisture.
But because of that highrelative humidity here in
Auckland, in some situationsit's actually worse, and what
that means is you need to have abetter ventilation strategy.
It all comes back to havingmuch, much better ventilation,

(13:32):
and that's another one of thoseareas.
It's not exactly a black holeas I describe it.
It's more of a grey areabecause we do have a clause in
the building code forventilation, but it's woefully
inadequate.
Basically, everyone compliesjust by having windows that
theoretically can open andyou're deemed to comply, and we
know that that just doesn't work.

Sam Brown (13:55):
From a design point of view.
I know this is a point thatGerard's raised in our
conversations before as well.
Obviously, if you're looking atpassive house these higher
levels of homestar projects alot of the time we're relying on
mechanical ventilation, oftenwith heat recovery as well.
But is there any designtechniques or methods that we

(14:15):
can look at that are morepassive, to be able to sort of
create better airflow and thingslike that?
Or is it just an issue ofbringing that cold damp here in?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (14:27):
There are methods like stack ventilation
which work on taller buildings,but generally on anything under
three storeys you're not goingto get a huge stack effect.
So it's kind of like thechimney effect, where you get a
big temperature gradient betweenthe, where it's a bit cooler
down the bottom and you mighthave a warm space up the top and

(14:52):
it draws the air up through thethrough the house.
That can work quite effectivelyon on buildings three stories
and above, but for mostresidential dwellings you're not
going to get that reliably.
So you really, and that's whywe have as a requirement in
homestar version 5 to havecontinuous mechanical
ventilation, and that that doescause some concern for people to

(15:17):
hear that for the first time,because what do you mean you've
got to have, we've got to have afan that runs continuously.
And the answer to that is yes,you do, and that's a good thing,
because you, you, you need tohave a constant supply of fresh
air, because you've got demands,uh, in the home, like people
breathing, and you've gotsources of moisture which you

(15:38):
need to get rid of, um, and youwant to have a constant supply
of fresh air and and most NewZealanders just don't have that,
and also in terms of people getconcerned about energy use and
reliance on a mechanical system.
The fans these days are super,super efficient, so we recommend
electrically commuted motors sothey're effectively silent.

(16:01):
They're super energy efficientand most people wouldn't even
notice if you have them sort ofdipping down to a fairly low
flow rate.
It's not like you've got thisrange hood that's blasting all
day long.
If it's sized, installed andcommissioned properly, it should
be able to be designed so thatpeople would not even be aware

(16:24):
that it's running either fromthe sound or from the power bill
.

Sam Brown (16:28):
Yeah, I know personally.
We've got them in our, we'vegot a decentralized system in
our house and hardware and Ithink it's the equivalent of
basically having a light onduring the day from a power
usage point of view, and duringwinter you don't notice that.
You don't hear them at all.
Summer, often, when it's quitehot, um, or the house is a

(16:50):
little bit stuffy, if it's beenclosed you know been a hot day
and the windows and doorshaven't been opened at all and
it kicks into like summerventilation mode.
It can be loud but it's like 20minutes of purging and then
it's back to sort of normallevels again and uh, doesn't
bother me at all, but yeah.

Gerard Dombroski (17:08):
Ben, you have something like that, don't you?
The old Alunos?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben Sutherland (17:12):
I've got 11 of them, but I have to say,
recently I found myself turningit off at night just because I
wake up feeling really, reallydry, leaving them on.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (17:24):
What have you got in your?

Ben Sutherland (17:24):
place.
I've got the alunos system, thein wall ones, yeah, but they
all just push them, they alltalk to each other and push and
pull air all around the house,uh.
So it works really well and Idon't hear it at all.
Great, but it does dry theplace out.

Gerard Dombroski (17:43):
And which?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (17:43):
climate.
Are you in?

Ben Sutherland (17:45):
Whereabouts this is in.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (17:48):
Wellington .
Yeah right, that's interesting.
Well, it's great that they'reworking effectively.
I mean, quite a few people askabout through-wall ventilations
like the Lunos because eitherthey're retrofitting or they're
trying to squeeze ventilationinto a building that doesn't
have much of a roof cavity, sothey're a really good option.

Ben Sutherland (18:08):
Yes, yes, I don't have much of a roof cavity
, and that's exactly why it'sjust so good.
Yeah, easy to install, yeah.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (18:16):
I mean it's really encouraging seeing
more options come onto themarket, because prior to well, a
few years ago you really hadwhat most people think of when
you say heat recovery,ventilation which we don't want
to go there and at the other endyou had some really flash
systems like SteepleElectron orquite amazing machines Zender is

(18:43):
the other one.
There's sort of really high-endpassive house which are
fantastic and I highly recommendthose, but they're going to be
sort of a significant investmentfor someone.
And there are some otheroptions now that are coming to
market which are either justcontinuous extract as opposed to
positive pressure, or a ductedextract, which is also a really

(19:05):
good option, or even a moresimple, more cost-effective
system with a little bit of heatrecovery in it as well.
So it's an emerging market forNew Zealand.
I mean internationally it's avery mature market but, like a
lot of these things, it feelsnew, because it's new in New
Zealand but elsewhere peoplehave been doing this for decades

(19:28):
.

Sam Brown (19:29):
I think that's a really good point that you just
made about that new New Zealandthing, and it would be
interesting to kind of justtouch on that a little bit more
because I feel like all of thisuptake of greener building and
focus on embodied carbon andpassive house and things like
that is very new here but it'swell ingrained internationally.
I mean, why has the uptake beenso?

(19:50):
Is there any reason that youcan see why the uptake's been so
slow in New Zealand inparticular?
And you know how much are weleaning on international
examples to try and sort of likeprove our point or make a case
here?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (20:04):
Well, I think we're not leaning on
international examples enough,because we're having to go
through what I I mean youmentioned leaky buildings 2.0.
That's not a new problem either.
Germany went through the samething.
A lot of north america wentthrough that two decades ago
when they started insulatingreally well.
Uh, you know, going back to the1970s oil shock, I mean, that's

(20:26):
when we started insulating andbecause of more extreme weather
conditions, other parts of theworld did that more, and they
went through the process ofgoing from cold and drafty to
warm and damp, and then comingout the other side and thinking,
oh, we need to warm, but wealso need to figure out this

(20:47):
moisture thing.
And so they've already gonethrough that process.
They know how to do it.
None of it's.
You know, the building scienceworks around the planet.
Our physics is no different, sowe just need to sort of catch
up.
I think the reason why we havelaid behind is because we are a

(21:08):
little island down the bottom ofthe earth and we also have had
some monopolies or duopolies whohave been quite happy with the
way things have been.
Yeah, and the reality is it's arelatively small market.
You know, there's only 5million people.
We only have to go across theditch and you've got a five six

(21:29):
times bigger market.
So if you're an internationalsupplier, you're have to go
across the ditch and you've gota five, six times bigger market,
um.
So if you're an internationalsupplier, you're going to look
at new zealand very cautiouslywith um.
You know it's logisticallytricky to get to and a limited
market on an international scale.
So, yeah, I think there's a.
There's a variety of issues, butI always said a couple of
things that I always used topoint out is that the people

(21:51):
that I met in New Zealand thathad the best homes, certainly 10
years ago, were mostly peoplewith accents or Kiwis who had
travelled overseas andexperienced a house in Toronto
or Vancouver or Germany or eventhe UK and experienced living in

(22:15):
constant temperature conditionsand inside and come back here
and just not accepted what wasdeemed normal in New Zealand.
And I think the otherinteresting part about the New
Zealand psyche is is the conceptof innovation, which we really

(22:35):
put up on a pedestal and we liketo think of ourselves as
innovators, and I went on a bitof a an anti-innovation campaign
a couple of years ago to saythat we in the building industry
in New Zealand.
We do not need to innovateright now, we just need to catch
up.

Ben Sutherland (22:52):
Yeah.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (22:54):
We like to think of ourselves as this
number eight wire and figuringthings out, and we shouldn't be
doing that in housing.
We should be going and seeingwhat's failed, what is working,
and just catch up.

Ben Sutherland (23:12):
Yeah, learn from others' mistakes.
Been doing it for long enough,yeah.

Sam Brown (23:19):
Do you think as well, that it's almost a failing
looking at it from our lens,because a lot of the time
architects are the ones that aredriving design decisions or
driving specification decisions?
Do you think it's a bit of afailing from our education
providers, be they AUT, vic,auckland or any of the other

(23:43):
ones that are out there, for notlooking at this or putting it
into the sort of the curriculumat an earlier point as well?
I feel like I knew nothing.
I mean, I did a sustainabilitypaper at university which I
didn't really teach much, but Ididn't learn any of this until
really only you know, two orthree years ago.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (24:03):
Yeah, I think it is.
I mean, it's easy to sort ofpoint and blame and I'm not an
architect, I did engineering andI'm not not a builder and often
I wish I quite like the look ofthat, particularly on sunny
days, not so much on rainy days.
Yeah, I have a lot of respectfor, for builders, but I I think

(24:23):
architects and builders aretrained to do the job that is in
the marketplace.
That's reality for thatprofession.
So I think it's all well andgood to train people and even
inspire young architects, but ifthey go out into the industry

(24:44):
and the market just demandsglass boxes in the best school
zone, then that's what they'regoing to end up learning how to
and being asked to design andbuild by their more experienced
colleagues and also the rest ofthe market.
So it's not going to solve itjust through education.

(25:07):
It's got to be through, youknow, systemic shift as well
yeah, I think it makes sense,yeah I guess as well.

Sam Brown (25:16):
Yeah, that I mean the request is always going to come
from clients as well.
And, speaking from ourexperience, and maybe it's
because we are positioned inthat slightly more high
performance, um, and greenbuilding realm, but so many of
our inquiries, even within thelast 18 months, have come
through that avenue of we'rewanting a high performance and
green building realm, but somany of our inquiries, even
within the last 18 months, havecome through that avenue of
we're wanting a high performancehome or we're wanting, you know

(25:36):
, this, that and the next thing,rather than just your
architecture, which has been hasbeen quite interesting for us
to to experience that change Ireally like hearing about
architecture firms.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (25:46):
I've interviewed quite a few through
homestyle Green and then also onthe Passive House podcast, and
there seems to be this you'vegot to sort of take this leap as
a small practice of gettingyour first Passive House project
or getting your firsthigh-performance project.
Often you'll be able to get anarticle written up about that or
some sort of PR or some sort ofPR, and then it kind of it

(26:11):
often snowballs from there andit doesn't take too many
projects for a small firm to getknown as a high-performance
designer or a passive housedesigner or whatever it might be
.
And then it kind of you seethese practices get to a point
where they are able to say thisis what we do and to start not

(26:32):
accepting clients.
Basically, it might be a littlebit different in 2024, when
there's a bit of a slowdown andobviously you've got to take
whatever works out there.
But that is a familiar journeythat I've heard over and over
again, where some people justneed to put themselves out there
for one or two projects andthen they make a name for

(26:53):
themselves doing that type ofwork.
Now I think the more thathappens then, the more consumers
get to talk about that amongstthemselves and sort of be proud
of that home, and then it sortof ripples out from there.
The other thing that I foundreally inspiring and very

(27:18):
effective are mid-build openhomes.
I love the idea of opening up ahome and inviting prospective
clients into a build when it'sjust closed in, when the
ventilation system is there andit's visible um, if you're doing

(27:38):
air tightness, you know whenthat has just been completed.
I mean, the best case scenariois you bring the blower door and
you do a blower door test withthe clients right there and then
and there are so many benefitsto doing that but the primary
one is they're not distracted bythe kitchen and the bathroom
because they're not there.
So all the things that aretypically taken photos of to

(28:01):
sell a house, they're kind ofdistractions to the performance
and they're not there and peoplecan look at how well the
envelope is put together, theycan see the insulation, they can
see the insulation, they cansee the ventilation system and
understand how it all works, andsee the windows, because
they'll be there and they canoperate the windows.
So all the things that aregoing to matter for how

(28:22):
comfortable and healthy thathome is, they're all there and
they're fully visible, and I'veheard that a number of times
that that's a whole marketingstrategy for some architects and
some builders is they get 20people along to a mid-build open
home and you only need two orthree people to convert from

(28:42):
that and that's your sort ofpipeline of work for the next
six months.

Sam Brown (28:46):
Yeah, interestingly though, we've done three or four
mid-build uh open homes, now umfor our home, star high
performance homes, and there'sbeen lots of people through and
there's been lots of inquiriesbut nothing's converted so I
think I mean I think that'sprobably more of a reflection of

(29:08):
the current market thananything else, but yeah.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (29:12):
Good on you for doing that, mate.

Sam Brown (29:14):
I totally agree with it being like a good avenue and
a good approach.
But yeah, unfortunately thereality of it converting hasn't
quite come to pass for us yet.
Well, I also.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (29:25):
I mean, what's the typical lead time for
the sale of someone's dreamhome or their last home?
Yeah, it might be 10 years.
It might be 10 years beforethey, you know by the between
when they start thinking aboutit and when they're actually
ready to embark on that projectis there software that you can

(29:50):
use to model the potentialperformance of these systems?

Ben Sutherland (29:55):
It'd be quite cool to just test some designs
to see how they're actuallygoing to perform before you know
going out there, so we need tomake a real one, yeah exactly.
You just get Sam to do it.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (30:06):
You get Sam to do it for you.
Yeah.

Sam Brown (30:08):
I can do it for you oh you can.
So I can answer that question.
I mean, like, as a Homestardesigner, we have access to the
Echo modelling tool, which ispretty good.
It's not quite as intense andas powerful as, like, the
Passive House planning packageor anything like that, but it
gives you a pretty goodunderstanding of how the home is

(30:31):
going to perform.
So if you guys need me to modelanything, I can do it for you.
Easy, man, yeah.
Or alternatively, you can dothe HomeStar design, of course,
yourselves.
But there is, in terms of aRevit plugin.
We ran beta testing on a Revitplugin for Echo earlier in the
year.
I don't know where that's atcurrently, Matthew, if you've

(30:51):
got any updates on that.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (30:52):
Oh for LiveSync.

Sam Brown (30:56):
Yeah.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (30:58):
Yeah, just working on the Australian
developer of that.
It's just working on the finaltouches, so hopefully we'll have
that available for Echo in thenext couple of months.
Oh cool, it doesn't seem tohave slowed it down.
Echo the energy model thatNZGBC has made available for

(31:19):
Homestar V5, it is based on thePassive House Planning Package.
The uptake of that has beenphenomenal.
We've had over 10,000 modelscreated on that software just in
the last two and a half years.
Some of those will beiterations, so it doesn't
necessarily mean 10,000 uniquedesigns, but it means that

(31:43):
people are using it over andover again to do exactly what
you asked, Ben to try a houseout and move things around and
see how it performs, and it's agreat way of optimising that
design for performance.
But also then, if you're doinga little bit of QS on top of

(32:03):
that, you can really figure outwhere the best bang for buck is
on your performance as wellwhere the best bang for buck is
on your performance as well, andon top of all the code
compliance requirements, so youcan use it for code compliance.
it also gives you a bit ofinsight into that overheating

(32:25):
risk as well.
So it gives you a littlepercentage prediction of time
that the house will be above 25degrees, and then you can start
playing around with your windowsizes and things like that to
try and reduce that.

Ben Sutherland (32:37):
I think you need to open this up to the market.
You might inspire some morepeople to go home start.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (32:45):
That I mean.
So we've got, if we step upfrom from the schedule method
and going back to the start ofthe conversation, this is
something that we're reallypitching to MB and also now
directly to the Minister, to saywe want more modelling.
Modelling should be the defaultinstead of the schedule method

(33:07):
when it comes to insulation,because the problems around
insulation aren't so much to dowith the objectives of H1.
It's all about how it'simplemented in the real world,
which is through the acceptablesolution typically, and that's
where the problem lies.
If you actually use themodelling method using tools

(33:28):
like Echo, that's where peopleare going to end up with a much
better result.

Gerard Dombroski (33:34):
Isn't the point of the review of the
insulation things just aboutfundamentally kind of reducing
complexity, I guess, protectingthe bottom end of the market,
making sure the people that canonly just afford to build
something can still afford,because I guess there's there's
still the risk that we usecomplexity and we're just adding

(33:59):
more things to a process,whereas I think being an opt-in
sort of thing I think then givespeople the choice.
But I don't know, I see a bitof a danger of making everyone
do more work well.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (34:15):
So my response to that is to say, when
do you want to do the work?
Because either you get someonelike sam to do the work and
model it for a couple of hours,or a builder is going to have to
figure out how to do funky hipson their roof truss and how to
get this ridiculous amount ofinsulation up into the roof, and

(34:38):
then you're also going to haveto figure out how to minimise
the condensation risk on theunderside of the roof.
So some work will have to bedone at some point and someone
will have to pay for materials.
It's just a matter of who'sdoing that work and what the
ultimate outcome is.

Gerard Dombroski (34:59):
Maybe we're talking about separate things
here.
The review of the insulationwhere they're talking about
backtracking?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (35:06):
Yeah, no, that's what I'm talking about,
because putting R6 in the roofis not simple.

Gerard Dombroski (35:15):
Yeah, but what was it previously?
What was it like a year ago?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (35:17):
R3, which was about half of what the rest
of the world is with similarclimate zones to us.
So tracking back from thatwould put us way back below
similar international standardsor places that have a similar
climate to us.
But my point that I was tryingto make was that the cost and

(35:43):
complexity is often used as areason to not do things.
It was the same when weintroduced double glazing.
People said, oh, this is tooexpensive.
Houses are already expensive.
Why do we need to go this extramile?
Part of it's just change and wejust need to get our heads

(36:04):
around it.
But the benefit of doing acalculation or modelling is it
shows you that in most parts ofNew Zealand you do not need to
be putting R6.6 in the roof.

Sam Brown (36:18):
That's what I was about to get to.
That makes more sense.

Gerard Dombroski (36:22):
That's what I was about to get to um that
makes more sense.

Sam Brown (36:23):
That's what I was about to get to.
Matthew is like.
I think that's the issue.
Just on the h1.
Problem at the moment is somany people you only use the
schedule method and they look atit and they go oh, this is
gospel, I have to put 6.6 on theroof and I have to put 2.8 in
the walls, blah, blah.
But ultimately when you do themodeling, you realize that a
home doesn't perform element toelement, it performs

(36:45):
holistically.
So you're ideally balancing theinsulation across the home.
So you might end up onlyneeding a 4.8 or something in
the ceiling if your walls arebetter, et cetera, et cetera.
So that's why the modellingmethod works just far more
efficiently.
So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gerard Dombroski (37:06):
My underlying concern that I was just trying
to get at was just trying tomake building a house
semi-affordable for people atthe bottom end of the market.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (37:16):
Yeah.

Gerard Dombroski (37:20):
So what's the most?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (37:20):
expensive part of building a house
Materials at the moment.

Ben Sutherland (37:27):
Yeah, and well, the labour.
Yeah, two thirds, one third,two thirds.
Two thirds material.
I would say oh no, there's, Idon't know, 50-50.

Sam Brown (37:44):
It's all expensive.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (37:48):
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to belittle
it.
Cost is an issue, definitely,and I know that it's all well
and good.
I'm very hesitant to usepercentages because you know, 1%
of $1 million is a lot of money, because 1% of $1 million is a
lot of money.
So we need to be very, verycareful about anything that adds

(38:09):
additional thousands of dollarsto a build if we're going to be
conscious of those people thatare yeah, insulation is very
small, it's very small.
in the grand scheme of things,and if people are genuinely
concerned about housingaffordability, there are
probably a whole bunch of otherthings that they could do to
easily take $10,000 to $20,000out of the house, and we've seen

(38:33):
this many, many times.
So the first one would bethinking about the window size.
Windows are some of the mostexpensive part of the building
envelope.
They're typically oversized andthey're also often bespoke, so
we need to do betterstandardisation of windows.
Does New Zealand offer anyoff-the-shelf windows?
Well, that's something I'mreally advocating for and I'm

(38:55):
hoping that some I don't know ifyou know of any suppliers that
are doing that.
Sam, I've been promoting thatidea for a long time and I don't
think it's going to be verylong before a large, probably
offshore supplier just stacks abig warehouse full of windows of
four sizes and says here theyare.

(39:17):
We can make them bespoke, butthey'll be twice as much If you
want these windows of this sizeand they're available tomorrow.
Here they are.

Sam Brown (39:26):
it's funny because I mean that exists for skylights,
right, pretty much skylight, themajority of the sky might
skylight market, whether it beadlux or vlux or whatever.
They're all you knowproprietary sizes.
Why not windows?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (39:40):
it's such a good question well, I think
we're starting to see that umthinking in modular construction
, off-site construction, withwith some of these building
systems where they've they'rehaving standardized cassette
wall, cassette sizes and and youknow they've got a finite
number of building elements andthen you design according to

(40:00):
those sizes.
So the methodology is certainlythere and I know that there's
always some there's a trickysection or you've got design
panel requirements that meanthat you have to have more
glazing facing the street andsome of these other issues.
But in general I think you knowlooking at standardisation of

(40:25):
windows would go a long way tobring those prices down.
The other thing we talk aboutquite a lot is making the
envelope much more.
I hesitate to use the wordsimple, but it is about
simplifying the form of thebuilding envelope.

(40:46):
Now that doesn't mean that thebuilding should be boring, but I
see a lot of house plans andwhen I look down at the floor
plan there are too many corners.
There appears often to be lotsof ins and outs and little bay
window kind of things which arelovely.

(41:06):
But every corner that you haveis an extra cost.
Someone quoted me $2,500 orsomething for every additional
corner on average.
Now that doesn't mean you can'thave a building that looks
interesting.
You can create interest fromchanging the cladding or you
know different um colors on theoutside and you can still have

(41:30):
ins and outs on the the outsideof the building.
But if you look at the thermalenvelope and really think about
how can you have as manystraight lines on that as
possible?
That's a really good way ofreducing cost and that will
likely also simplify the shapeof the roof, and I see some
ridiculous shaped roofs thatjust have far too many ridges

(41:54):
and valleys in them, and youknow so.
There are all these areas whereyou can probably easily find
$10,000 to $20,000 on a standardgroup home builder floor plan,
before starting to point thefinger at insulation as being
the thing that makes itexpensive.

Ben Sutherland (42:14):
Yeah yeah, complexity is a huge one.

Sam Brown (42:18):
And I think what we're talking to here is a
certain section of the market aswell, like, obviously, the New
Zealand like, particularly, theresidential market is, you know,
primarily group home buildingtype offerings, with a very,
very small amount of it beingbespoke.
So I mean that's the area thatneeds to be targeted in the

(42:40):
first instance for us to reallysee differences in terms of both
the performance andaffordability of housing at a
more entry level.
But it'd be interesting, yeah,from an architect's point of
view, particularly if we'relooking at that bespoke stuff.
I think, like you've talkedabout, matthew, having these
sort of preset sizes and these,the more rigorous understanding

(43:05):
of design decisions in terms ofthe way that you are developing
a home, although it may seemlimiting, it can actually be
quite an interesting designchallenge, I think, something
that architects may, you know,may look to, to sort of uh
champion a bit, or, hopefully,yeah, you know it's very easy.
It's very easy.

(43:26):
I mean, we had a client inWanaka.
They're a little bitfrustrating, to be fair.
You know they just wanted theentire facade to be glass and
we're like, well, that's fine,but you can also just walk
outside and have that exact sameview.
Is it not more interesting orwe thought you know it is more
interesting from anarchitectural point of view, to
frame aspects of the view.

(43:46):
So if you sit here, you seethis point of a mountaintop, you
catch a glimpse of the lakehere and things like that, and
they're like, no, we just wantglass, all glass, all view,
everything, and like that's notchallenging or necessarily
interesting from a designperspective.
and so I think that's like youknow, there's a good balance to
be had with using modularsystems or even, like you said,

(44:07):
smaller amounts of glazing andthings like that yeah, I I have
been known to say, um, when Isee floor to ceiling glass, that
the architect was just lazy.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (44:20):
But um, I can say I'm not an architect,
I'm gonna be, I'm gonna becareful look how nice mine line
up though.

Sam Brown (44:30):
So yeah, not too lazy , they do line up nicely, mate.

Ben Sutherland (44:35):
Yeah, I just, want to um go back to the
sustainability side of theseadvancements a little bit,
bringing in additionalmechanical ventilation, for
example, is that in a way justtransferring the operational

(44:58):
carbon issue with the embodiedcarbon issue?
That make sense.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (45:00):
So there's obviously a lot more embodied
carbon, so you're putting morestuff into the house, yeah, yes,
uh, to make it operate moreefficiently, efficiently.
So the the trick there is toput the right amount of extra
stuff and have it in the rightplace, doing the right thing to

(45:22):
dramatically decrease the thelifetime energy use, and with
something like ventilation, it's.
That's not hard, because thebenefits of having drier
internal environment going,you're going to get that wind
from a pure energy point of viewanyway, but you're also going
to your your interior is goingto be that win from a pure

(45:42):
energy point of view anyway, butyou're also going to your
interior is going to be muchmore durable.
So, even if you just look at itfrom a purely energy and
durability carbon lens, you'regoing to be winning, but the
health benefits are going to beeven significant, even more
significant than that.
So that's I mean there was thisconcept of efficiency first,

(46:07):
which is in relation to insteadof trying to throw things like
solar panels on a roof and callthat sustainable, you try and
make your envelope as efficientas possible.
You start with the enclosure ofthe building and focus on
reducing demand before you startadding supply of energy.

(46:31):
I've talked about efficiencysecond, with effectiveness being
first, and I think in some ofour like most of our New Zealand
housing stock, you could arguethat they're not effective
because they don't adequatelykeep people healthy and dry and
warm.
That's what we need to befocusing on first is what is the

(46:56):
purpose of housing and are weeven achieving some of those
fundamental requirements or thepurpose of housing?
So it's got to be effectivefirst.
You know, a V8 F-150 trucksitting not going anywhere is

(47:19):
super energy efficient becauseit's not using any energy.
It's not very effective becauseit's not going anywhere.
But a building, most of ourexisting homes don't use enough
energy because they'redramatically underheated,
because people are cold and wehave high rates of asthma.

(47:42):
So we need to ensure that we'remaking buildings effective
first and we can also do thatwhile making them efficient.
I've kind of gone off on a bitof a tangent in answer to your
question, but yes, we do have toput extra stuff into homes

(48:03):
because there are things thathaven't been in there.
We can't just rely on openingand closing windows for
ventilation.
So we do have to add a littlebit of services and mechanical
systems in into that to make itwork properly.
But that's okay as long as wesize it correctly, design it
well, commission it and lookafter it, because if we do that,

(48:26):
that system will look after thepeople inside the building and
it will also look after thebuilding for much longer.
And a big part ofsustainability is also about
durability.
There's kind of overlap betweensustainability and resilience,
but the more durable thebuilding is, then you know
that's more sustainable as well,because we're not going to have
to knock the thing down in 20years because it's all mouldy

(48:46):
and falling apart.

Sam Brown (48:49):
It's interesting because I think we, as designers
and professionals, weunderstand when the principles
are explained to us.
We understand the benefits andthe reasoning, but often what
I've come across, the difficultythat we've come across, is
being able to adequatelycommunicate that or effectively
communicate that to potentialclients and builders as well.

(49:11):
Like are there, are there anysort of methods or do you have
any suggestions in a way that wecan?
We can sort of do that a littlebit more effectively?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (49:23):
I've thought about this quite a lot
In New Zealand because we've gota temperate, a kind of moderate
climate.
We can't make as strong a casepurely on energy savings and
cost savings.
If we were really really coldlike in Canada or northern

(49:43):
Europe, you'd be able to do anice little calculation and show
them.
You know, if you only spendthis much then your energy bills
are going to be this high.
If we spend a little bit moreon your insulation and maybe a
central heating system, thenyour energy bills are going to
be much lower, and you know it'sa simple cost benefit.
We don't.

(50:04):
We have that a little bit herein New Zealand and there has
been some good research doneshowing that across all the
climate zones in Australiathrough the Green Building
Council there.
It's a good paper done by KPMG.
I can show you the, I can giveyou the link to that, and it's
quite a good piece of analysisbecause it's really useful when
you're having a conversationwith a bank because it justifies

(50:27):
getting a slightly highermortgage at the outset to say,
well, look, if you give me$10,000 more or $20,000 or
$50,000, I'm going to be abetter customer for you because
I'm going to be able to pay thatback faster because my utility
bills over the life of thatmortgage are going to be a
better customer for you, becauseI'm going to be able to pay
that back faster, because myutility bills over the life of
that mortgage are going to bemuch lower.

(50:47):
Therefore, I'll be able to paythat off much, much easier.
So that's a nice curve to havefrom the perspective of getting
a mortgage.
But I think we need to do morethan just talk about dollars and
straight payback in New Zealand, because the benefits are much

(51:11):
more related to health and Icome back to that effectiveness
of the building and really whatpeople are hoping for in living
in their home.
What I started playing aroundwith in my communication is
pointing out those holes in thebuilding code.
So there's this concept incommercial building of a green

(51:36):
premium to say, if you buildyour standard building, if you
build it to green, it's going tobe slightly more valuable.
That's sort of above the linethinking of saying, yeah, I'm
going to give you somethingextra.
Stepping back from that.
There's another concept of abrown deficit.

(51:57):
I can't remember the name ofthe word, but it's basically a
brown deficit.
It's basically pointing outthat if you just build to the
building code, you're actuallygoing to be below the standard
of what you probably think isreasonable.
So I don't know how effectivethis is, because I'm not a
marketing guy.
You're delving into sort ofnegative marketing instead of

(52:19):
positive marketing.
But I think we almost have aduty of care to prospective
homeowners to point out thedeficiencies of the building
code.
To say yes, we can build you abuilding code compliant, but
you're aware that it willprobably overheat and it will
get condensation on the insidebecause you won't have adequate
ventilation.
There's nothing to stop it fromoverheating and you may have

(52:42):
some of these significant issuesdown the track.
And, like I say, I don't knowhow effective that is.
But I think it's reallyimportant that we don't, or that
we at least acknowledge theassumption that most people
quite rightly have that thebuilding code is adequate.

Sam Brown (53:03):
Yeah, and I was also going to say that a lot of
people, particularly governance,are pretty protective of the
building code as well.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (53:10):
Yeah, and I go back to my point about the
building code that there'snothing wrong with the Building
Act and there's nothing wrongwith the performance criteria or
the objectives of most of theclauses in the building code.
But it comes down to theimplementation and the
acceptable solutions of thoseclauses.
That are the real issue.

Sam Brown (53:30):
And it's also often taken as a target rather than a
minimum, which I think is a bigissue.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (53:36):
Well, there are two aspects there.
Yes, it's seen as the target,but if you take something like
wall insulation, in mostinstances we're not even hitting
that target.
So not only are people justdesigning to that threshold of
achieving r 2.8, for example inthe walls, but 90 of new builds

(53:57):
right now.
If you were to actuallycalculate the r value of a
consented wall, it wouldn't beanywhere near 2.8.

Ben Sutherland (54:07):
Interesting Gerard, would you say that your
workshop landlords haveinsulated your walls?

Sam Brown (54:18):
Gerard's sitting at around.
What 14 degrees in there,gerard.

Gerard Dombroski (54:23):
Yeah, just under 14.

Ben Sutherland (54:24):
You look nice and cosy.

Gerard Dombroski (54:27):
Actually, I insulated the ceiling myself
just like 50 mil, which made asmall difference back in the day
.
The overheating was probablythe worst issue.
It was hilariously hot, likewe'd be sitting here without a
top on.
It's like splitting.
Then in winter you're likefreezing your ass off as well.

Sam Brown (54:51):
Matthew, before we sort of wrap up, I'd be
interested to kind of hear fromyou whether you've got any sort
of notable projects or keyexamples, whether they be like
buildings that have gone throughthe Homestar process.
One that springs to mind ismaybe that new Fletcher Living

(55:12):
10-star home, or maybe even likeone of the Green Star projects,
potentially like the ScionCentre in Rotorua.
Is there any others that yousort of popped to mind or that
you want to talk to thatarchitects or listeners could
potentially look up and takelessons from?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (55:31):
Well, yeah , I mean the Loko project from
Fletcher Living, very exciting.
We pointed a few to a couple ofyour projects, sam, because I
think they're really goodexamples on a smaller scale, but
more.
I wasn't wishing in some waysmore, but it was one of the.

(55:52):
Yours was one of the first umv5 and it was such a good
summary of some of the keythings that we point to to say
you know, this is what you needto do to go from either building
code or even from a previousversion of HomeStart from
version 4 to version 5, you know, incorporating things like I
think you put Lunos ventilationin that first one use SIP panel

(56:15):
wall construction.
So it's got a whole bunch ofjust quite nice, accessible
systems for people to look atand it's at a level of the
market sort of a budget that Ithink is much more relatable to
people.
And in some ways, that's whyI'm more excited about the rest
of Fletcher Living's offeringbecause, yes, they've got this.

(56:37):
It's a bit like when you go toa motor show.
You know you go to a car showand they have all these amazing
like.
It's a bit like when you go toa motor show.
You know I go to a car show andthey have all these amazing
like prototypes of things, thatwhich you know maybe come to
fruition, maybe won't, but thenit's more about what's their
next year's model, what's goingto actually be available.
And that is really excitingbecause Fletcher Living are also

(56:59):
incorporating some of thatlearning into their, some of
their new developments, andthat's when we're going to start
to see scale and more tractionfor the real market.
I'd love for every house to bea loco.
Um, it's going to take a whileto get to that point.

(57:19):
So there are lots of otherprojects that we can see out in
the marketplace that areachieving that on the way to
getting there.
The other really exciting thingwell, there's a whole bunch of
exciting areas.
Built-to-rent is quite anexciting space that we're seeing
at the moment because that'sshifting the whole paradigm of
home ownership buildingaffordability, the ability to

(57:43):
have more standardisation, notjust in windows but also just
build methods and typologies.
So that's an exciting space andwe've got really good uptake
and working closely withSimplicity.
New ground, capital and alsokiwi property have just opened

(58:05):
there, built to rent, in sylviapark, right next to the, the
shopping mall here in auburn,which is a fantastic project.
And the other area of uptake isin the residential um sorry, in
the retirement village sector.
Now they're a reallyinteresting group because
they're similar to Kying Orderin that they retain their assets

(58:27):
.
So they have a vested interestthat they can kind of see the
benefit of building homes thatare going to be healthy because
that's really important fortheir clients but also are going
to be relatively easy tomaintain and be robust over a
long period of time.
And the other key reason whymost of them are really

(58:51):
interested in Homestar isbecause they have now a legal
requirement to report on theirgreenhouse gas emissions.
That's something that's cominginto play but it exists already
for the largest 197 listedcompanies in new zealand and a
lot of those retirement villageoperators fall within that.

(59:12):
So as of the last financialyear they were all required by
law to report, along with theirfinancial statements, their
scope one and scope twoemissions, and so I think doing
Homestar is a really useful toolfor that.

Ben Sutherland (59:29):
Just curious how hard is it to build a Homestar
10, let's say, in comparison to,say, a five?
Is it next level or is itachievable?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (59:42):
So we've had two.
It's always a bittersweet whenwe launch a new version of the
tool and then someone comes anddelivers a 10 Homestar straight
off the bat.
I'm like, oh, maybe we didn'tmake it home.

Ben Sutherland (59:57):
Go to 11.

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (59:59):
So yeah, we've had two already under
version 5.
In version 5, there's around130 points available.
So to get 10, you need 100 ofthose.
It's definitely achievable.
You do need to be thinkingabout it from the get-go.

(01:00:22):
It's going to be very hard totake an existing plan and throw
things at it.
To collect all those points youhave to be really considering
your form factor, your size,probably aspects of the location
that are going to play a prettyimportant role.
But you really have to beoptimising that envelope and

(01:00:46):
then thinking then going to thenext level in terms of your
products and what materialsyou're specifying and all those
other aspects that are in theredoing water efficiency really
well.
You just have to be taking most.
You probably have to becollecting points in all of the
credits to get up to that level.

(01:01:07):
But I think with all these Imean it's similar to Passive
House projects it's all aboutgetting the right team on board,
getting everyone around thetable really early on in the
project.
That's the way to run a projectlike that and make it happen
smoothly and probably at not toomuch cost.

(01:01:28):
I mean Nathan's project inNelson.
That wasn't a massivelyexpensive build.
He did some of the work himselfbut it's.
You know he certainly didn'tblow the budget on his project.

Sam Brown (01:01:44):
Did take him a decade .

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (01:01:46):
Well, there is that.
But if you're an, architect.
You know, you're just workingon your own home, if he was his
own client, he probably wouldhave fired himself a long time
ago.

Sam Brown (01:01:57):
I think.
I mean, I think it's likeanything, ben, you know, if
you've got the time and the teamand the budget, it's pretty
affordable.
I mean, even the budget's notnecessarily the thing, but I
think it's a matter of havingthe you probably want a fee from
a design.
You know, from an architecturedesign point of view.
You want to have a prettyrobust fee in there.

Ben Sutherland (01:02:17):
Yeah.

Sam Brown (01:02:19):
But I think it's also having clients that understand
this and are willing to sort oftake a punt is going to be
probably the biggest hurdle, Iimagine.

Ben Sutherland (01:02:32):
Yeah, awesome.
Well, where do we go to forthose of us who are interested
some more information?
Where do we go to find out more?
Well?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (01:02:44):
we've just launched our design guide for
Homestar, so that's really thebest place to start.
And if you jump onto NZGPCwebsite it's nzgpcorgnz and just
type in Homestar design guide,it is up in the top menu but
should be fairly easy to find.
Homestead design guide.
It is up in the in the top menubut should be fairly easy to

(01:03:05):
find.
That's a fairly detaileddocument and it dives straight
into some pretty technical stuffabout how to design.
It gives you sort of a code sixand then an eight and above
options for and there's this afew different case studies in
there you can have a lookthrough, but it goes right into

(01:03:26):
the details that you need to bethinking of and ventilation
systems, all the assemblies andthat sort of thing.
So if, if you'rearchitecturally inclined, that's
definitely a really good placeto start.
We we had some really goodinput from Respond Architects
put that together and there wasalso some really good support
from NZIA, adnz and Brands.

Sam Brown (01:03:52):
Cool, I think that might be time for us, gerard.
Any final questions?

Ben Sutherland (01:04:01):
Gerard's frozen.

Sam Brown (01:04:09):
It's too cold.
It's got so cold, we've losthim.
We've lost him.
Well, gerard jumps back on.
Matthew, I was just gonna saydo you want to take the
opportunity as well?
I mean, I know that you've gota couple of other um ventures in
the podcast realm in terms ofgetting the word out there do
you want to just give a a quickspiel about those?

Matthew Cutler-Welsh (01:04:23):
Sure, thank you.
Yeah, homestyle Green podcastsort of.
I've launched it kind of as asecond season kicking off with
Build Aotearoa, and that's moresimilar to this sort of format.
It's a bit more conversationaland the idea of that is to have
a bit more of a weeklyconversation about issues in the

(01:04:45):
building industry and kind ofwhat's going on, with definitely
a lean towards sustainabilityand higher performance building.
And I'm also the co-host of thePassive House podcast, which is
produced by the Passive HouseAccelerator, and that's a great

(01:05:07):
bunch there that promote PassiveHouse and also, increasingly,
issues relating to Passive House.
So we've done a series onoff-site manufacturing.
We're doing a series at themoment on keeping cool, so
really looking at thisincreasing issue around the

(01:05:30):
world of making sure buildingsdon't overheat, and we've done a
few other series that arelooking not just at Passive
House, but you can check thatout at Passive House Accelerator
Awesome.

Sam Brown (01:05:48):
Cool.
Well, thank you very much foryour time today, matthew, and
yeah, thanks for jumping on theconversation and I mean we'll
obviously talk a bit more in thefuture and I hope that sort of
this discussion helps direct,you know, other architects and
designers and the general publictowards this style of the

(01:06:08):
building industry.
And yeah, thank you very muchPleasure.
All right, thanks guys.
Cheers guys, cheers guys,cheers guys.