Regenerative Design & Construction Practices

For Design & Make, Architecture is a responsive and sensitive practice that should influence positive societal change with minimal environmental impact.
We are passionate about creating this change, whether it be through the creation of beautiful high-performing buildings, educating the next generation of Architects and Makers or undertaking research to improve the practices of the mainstream construction industry.

Regenerative Practice requires us to think holistically, understanding the way we practice and the work we create as integral parts of complex socio-economic and ecological systems. It requires us to act with integrity, patience and consideration and to collaborate authentically with project stakeholders, including the physical site and context of our projects.

This approach is central to all we do but can be applied at a level appropriate to each project: small steps in every project have cumulative impact toward creating beneficial widespread change.

Tools

Energy Modelling

Energy modelling analyses your home from a design perspective (orientation, window location and shading) as well as from a componentry perspective (thermal performance of floors, walls, roofs, and windows, airtightness etc.)

Different options for building components can be inputted to test different construction and systems scenarios.  If a cost estimate has been prepared by a Quantity Surveyor we can undertake a detailed cost-benefit versus performance assessment so that the selection of systems, components and materials aligns your building’s performance and your budget.

This assessment quantifies the present value cost comparisons of upfront investment versus the cost savings over the building’s lifetime. Experience from other buildings shows that the cost savings between an energy efficient building and a non-energy efficient building can be in the tens of thousands of dollars over a 50-year period.

Given these benefits, we recommend undertaking energy modelling of your proposed design, even if you are not pursuing any certification, as this enables us to ensure your building performance is optimized in line with your budget with the benefit of annual operational savings.

Homestar

Developed by the New Zealand Green Building Council, Homestar is an independent rating tool for assessing the health, efficiency, and sustainability of homes across New Zealand and is increasingly being recognized as adding value to your project. There are three key parts required to achieve Homestar certification:

• Energy Modelling, using ECCHO, a simplified version of Passive House software.
• Embodied Carbon Calculation, using an excel spreadsheet software.
• Sustainable healthy materials, Water conservation, natural lighting assessment.

Benefits of Homestar

• Ensure your home is built well above the NZ Building Code (the NZBC is a minimum standard of performance and is at a level well below accepted overseas standards).
• Create a high-performance, healthy home which also provides annual energy and water cost savings. (Annual operational cost savings from a Homestar rated home average between $450 to $500 per annum and more for a passive house).
• With full Homestar certification you can obtain mortgage interest rate reduction benefits.
• Know how much embodied energy is in your building and get real about climate change action by implementing design modifications to reduce carbon emissions.
• Add long-term value within a property market growing increasingly aware of the benefits of building performance.

Process
The three key parts of Homestar are considered from Concept through Detailed Design and include assessments of the building as-built on site. Baseline modelling is revised to suit construction detailing and material selection as the design progresses.

Introduction to Homestar Link

Passive House Design and Certification

Certified Passive House homes are supremely comfortable and healthy. It will be 20-22 degrees inside all year round, in every part of the house. The air is always fresh. It never feels damp. The house has been built well, with quality fittings carefully assembled. All of this is verified to ensure the building is a place in which people thrive.​

What sets a Passive House Apart?
Design Stage Energy Modelling
Excellent Insulation
Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery
Airtight Building Envelope
High Performance Windows & Doors
No Thermal Bridges

Careful consideration of these principles and a clear understanding of the required performance standards are required from the outset, to ensure that the building design can achieve certification.

We have a Certified Passive House designer in-house and encourage all our clients to consider the benefits Passive House Certification can add to a project.

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Passive House Institute NZ Link

Regenerative Materials

Locally-sourced natural and bio-based materials as utilised for millennia around the globe, such as adobe, rammed earth, strawbale, hempcrete and earthen plasters provide affordable, non-toxic, high-performance solutions for contemporary buildings. Being natural, these materials perform in technically complex ways, helping provide thermal mass, thermal comfort and interior moisture management to buildings. This natural regulation creates atmospheres which are healthy to experience and comfortable to live in as well as beautiful to experience.

The bio-material used is waste from other sectors (straw stalk from grain growing, hemp hurd from hemp growing, wood pulp from forestry) meaning that these techniques are carbon-neutral, even carbon-sequestering, and can be considered as truly regenerative as part of local circular economic systems.

Design & Make Architects actively promote the use of these materials, even in conventional builds, so that the benefits of these amazing materials can be experienced by as many people as possible.

We are active members of the Earth Building Association of New Zealand, EBANZ, an internationally recognised collective of Architects, Engineers, Builders, Academics and the wider community promoting and advocating for all forms of natural building techniques. The group provides education to communities and industry and undertakes research in collaboration with tertiary and government institutions so that these materials and techniques can provide ancient solutions to today’s problems, including housing affordability, building quality, occupant health, economic circularity and community empowerment. 

Earth Building Association of NZ LINK