Wednesday, 13 November 2013
PrefabNZ / HIVE click-raft Pavilion on site !
Together with Pamela and Angela - the trusty PrefabNZ team - we had a fun day assembling the click-raft prototype pavilion after its late arrival.... but all sorted for opening early morning on Day 1 at the A&P Show in Christchurch. I've included some assembly shots along with a team shot at the end. Also a shot of Gary Caulfield and his trusty steed at Puke Ariki where we disassembled it earlier in the year ready for its next adventure. A very big thankyou to all involved including the guys at Stanley who fabricated it (especially to Gary and Sean for making it happen), and the fantastic support of Pamela and Angela and a huge array of spontaneous helpers who just turned up curious to pitch in, including the wonderful A&P security lads - many thanks guys!
Monday, 11 November 2013
click-raft design development - cnc fabricated scale model
Photos below show the new cnc fabricated 1:10 scale model exploring next stage of design development - thanks to Jaap and Ben.
Thursday, 31 October 2013
PrefabNZ Click-Raft Pavilion for Christchurch
Wonderful News - PrefabNZ have chosen to use click-raft for the new PrefabNZ Pavilion as an exciting update to the HIVE (Home Innovation Village). It will arrive firstly at the Canterbury A&P Show 12-15 November 2013 before being transferred to HIVE - images below of assembly at Stanley Modular factory in Matamata.
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Kidsfirst Redcliffs Kindergarten gets Resource Consent
Exciting times, Resource Consent has been granted by Christchurch City Council. Next step is Building Consent - all stops out now to complete architectural, structural, services and environmental documentation of the project. This will be a wonderful mile stone in the evolution of click-raft.... and a special gift for the little people and their families of Redcliffs Christchurch.
DIY DEBATE: click-raft/WikiHouse/Art Box @ FESTA (christchurch temporary architecture festival)
Friday, 21 June 2013
Kidsfirst Design Development
Redcliffs Kindergarten development is rolling. Many of the challenges to realise the project such as the structure and cladding, services and environmental issues are getting sorted - with various details still to solve, next step is to realise a full-size prototype mock-up at Stanley's factory to review with Sean Wood and his team. Meanwhile drawing documentation is happening flat-out - have some great new images to show thanks to Jaap ! Can't wait to see it on the ground - especially for all the wonderful people (esp little people) of Redcliffs and the fantastic team at Kidsfirst.
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
Sunday, 26 May 2013
click-learn grows up... Kidsfirst Redcliffs Kindergarten
Since the realisation of the full size prototype for the Puke Ariki Kiwi Prefab exhibition much has happened. We have been working hard to realise a possible project for my old friend Mel Slemint affected by the earthquakes in Christchurch. Being a working mum (an architect) with kids at local community kindergarten she together with a focused bunch of parents led by Greg Jansen were desperately looking for a solution to replace their demolished kindergarten for their little people.
So I put together a team including my trusty collaborator Jaap Dankert (also busy realising a number of small projects in the netherlands), with support from Gary Caulfield and Sean Wood from Stanley Modular (who fabricated the Puke Ariki prototype) and structural engineer Alistair Cattenach and Rowan Ballagh from Dunning Thornton, and services & environmental engineer Patrick Arnold from eCubed Building Workshop we put together a proposal with two options - a super minimum option and an expanded option including community space, with the ambition to realise it from beginning to end in four months.
The result of this very committed band of people has been a wonderful engagement and commitment from Kidsfirst CEO Sherryll Wilson and the Kidsfirst Board to fully embrace the proposal and realise all of the ideas behind my earlier thinking from the Click-Learn Future Schools submission in Australia.
Kidsfirst sees the project as an exciting example of a new generation of learning environment and are very enthusiastic to realise the full potentials of the click-raft system together with its benefits of inexpensive construction, strong and rugged for earthquake, rapid to fabricate and assemble, and highly flexible to enable easy adaption to specific requirements and different sites. Additionally the inclusion of PV solar power on the roof, water harvesting for toilets and garden water, and an educational resource management system which provides an easy to use monitoring system so that teachers and parents can learn together with the kids how best to use the building and manage its natural resources of ambient temperature, roof water and solar energy supply.
For click-raft this is a very exciting moment, its the beginning of what I hope will be an ongoing relationship to realise in partnership with Kidsfirst the first fully code compliant buildings... and to do this for the young kids affected by Christchurch's earthquakes, providing them with a completely new kind of learning future.
I've included a bunch of work progress images still under development as we progress the design and refine it taking into account the many spatial, structural, environmental and economic issues to be addressed taking into account not only Christchurch's new compliance codes but also Ministry of Education compliance to gain a licence. All important hoops to address in realising the project.
Monday, 15 April 2013
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Thursday, 7 February 2013
Monday, 28 January 2013
Innovate or Die - Time for Radical Change.
Conditions in todays world are changing radically, the recession that hit in 2008 is still with us, continuing to have a massive impact on daily life. But over the longer term there are bigger and tougher challenges. The biggest is to confront the deep need to live in tune with our planet with fewer resources.
But how, especially when times are so tough, and resources so limited?
Even when this is so incredibly clear, our natural tendency is to continue with what we know and trust, business as usual. Yet our current way of making our homes and cities clearly does not meet the huge challenges of earthquakes, leaky buildings, or environmentally damaging materials and processes. Ironically early in the 21st century New Zealand embraced good ambitions to start to build in a green environmental way, only to abandon it as too expensive many other countries have done the same. However the reality is that even basic traditional construction for ordinary houses is too expensive for most people and no longer makes sense where pressure on land is high such as in larger cities.
So the question is how to achieve more with less. How to achieve higher performance, better quality lower cost buildings during a massive recession?
The only way forward is to innovate or die. To up skill and invest in an unknown future. That future is going to be tough, so buildings need to be carefully thought about and extremely well designed to be tough, robust and efficient with resources. To do more with less space, time, energy, water and waste. In a way every building needs to become more self reliant in order to offer something back, to give something to the wider community - we only need to look at the effects of the huge storms that hit the east coast of America last year to realise that each building should become a resource centre of energy, water and other resources which can then be given back to the grid as a resource.
This requires a new philosophy for 21st century architecture, our cities and the way our resources are tapped and managed. We need distributed systems not centralised ones and they need to be two way not one way. But each building needs to operate as a resource centre itself, in the same sense that a tree does, to tap into nature's abundant renewable resources.
This is the secret of click-raft, which has been developed from first principles learning deeply from nature, open for a completely new approach to these deep questions of how to live on our fragile planet. To begin with a simple prefabricated system made with renewable materials that can be easily and quickly assembled in a short time within a humble budget.
This would shift construction from...
- expensive to AFFORDABLE
- difficult to EASY
- hi-impact (heavy) to LOW IMPACT (light)
- energy dependent to ENERGY INDEPENDENT
- one off site specific to SITE ADAPTABLE (multiple click components)
- fixed in place to RE-LOCATE-ABLE
- non-recycle to RE-CYCLE / RE-ASSEMBLE
- limited resources to RENEWABLE RESOURCES
- services dependent to SERVICES INTEGRATED
- structure + network to STRUCTURE IS THE NETWORK
- traditional shelter to EDUCATIONAL ENABLING TOOL
for more information refer to : -
http://www.cma-u.com/content/click-learn-prefab-school
http://www.cma-u.com/sites/default/files/pdf/1115%20Future%20Schools.pdf
http://www.cma-u.com/content/click-raft-type-02
http://www.cma-u.com/sites/default/files/pdf/1111%20click-raft%2002.pdf
http://www.cma-u.com/content/click-raft-type-03
http://www.cma-u.com/sites/default/files/pdf/1113%20click-raft%2003.pdf
But how, especially when times are so tough, and resources so limited?
Even when this is so incredibly clear, our natural tendency is to continue with what we know and trust, business as usual. Yet our current way of making our homes and cities clearly does not meet the huge challenges of earthquakes, leaky buildings, or environmentally damaging materials and processes. Ironically early in the 21st century New Zealand embraced good ambitions to start to build in a green environmental way, only to abandon it as too expensive many other countries have done the same. However the reality is that even basic traditional construction for ordinary houses is too expensive for most people and no longer makes sense where pressure on land is high such as in larger cities.
So the question is how to achieve more with less. How to achieve higher performance, better quality lower cost buildings during a massive recession?
The only way forward is to innovate or die. To up skill and invest in an unknown future. That future is going to be tough, so buildings need to be carefully thought about and extremely well designed to be tough, robust and efficient with resources. To do more with less space, time, energy, water and waste. In a way every building needs to become more self reliant in order to offer something back, to give something to the wider community - we only need to look at the effects of the huge storms that hit the east coast of America last year to realise that each building should become a resource centre of energy, water and other resources which can then be given back to the grid as a resource.
This requires a new philosophy for 21st century architecture, our cities and the way our resources are tapped and managed. We need distributed systems not centralised ones and they need to be two way not one way. But each building needs to operate as a resource centre itself, in the same sense that a tree does, to tap into nature's abundant renewable resources.
This is the secret of click-raft, which has been developed from first principles learning deeply from nature, open for a completely new approach to these deep questions of how to live on our fragile planet. To begin with a simple prefabricated system made with renewable materials that can be easily and quickly assembled in a short time within a humble budget.
This would shift construction from...
- expensive to AFFORDABLE
- difficult to EASY
- hi-impact (heavy) to LOW IMPACT (light)
- energy dependent to ENERGY INDEPENDENT
- one off site specific to SITE ADAPTABLE (multiple click components)
- fixed in place to RE-LOCATE-ABLE
- non-recycle to RE-CYCLE / RE-ASSEMBLE
- limited resources to RENEWABLE RESOURCES
- services dependent to SERVICES INTEGRATED
- structure + network to STRUCTURE IS THE NETWORK
- traditional shelter to EDUCATIONAL ENABLING TOOL
for more information refer to : -
http://www.cma-u.com/content/click-learn-prefab-school
http://www.cma-u.com/sites/default/files/pdf/1115%20Future%20Schools.pdf
http://www.cma-u.com/content/click-raft-type-02
http://www.cma-u.com/sites/default/files/pdf/1111%20click-raft%2002.pdf
http://www.cma-u.com/content/click-raft-type-03
http://www.cma-u.com/sites/default/files/pdf/1113%20click-raft%2003.pdf
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