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Speaker 1: Housing News and how you can do it for a

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Speaker 1: decent price. So we've got a three bedroom house built

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Speaker 1: in six weeks for three hundred and thirty three thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: That is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars less than

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Speaker 1: the average government constructed Coying aur A house. It's been

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Speaker 1: done by architect Rich Nash and his team. It's called

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Speaker 1: a Living House and Rich Nation as well. It's Rich.

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Speaker 1: Very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, morning, Mike, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Not at all? What size is the house?

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Speaker 2: It's eighty five square meters, so.

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Speaker 1: She's a wee one. So what's that come out at

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Speaker 1: cost per meter?

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Speaker 2: Well, so it's about four thousand a square meter, But

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Speaker 2: it's sort of more about the amenity that you get

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Speaker 2: rather than the size.

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Speaker 1: Right, And so is it a good looking house and

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Speaker 1: one you're proud of and one eye would buy and

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Speaker 1: be happy to live in?

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Speaker 2: I have? Yeah? I think so it is a good looking,

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Speaker 2: cute little house. It's well proportioned, got great volume, ventilation,

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Speaker 2: light and all that sort of stuff. I think you'd

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Speaker 2: love one. Mike.

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Speaker 1: What's what have you done it for? What's its purpose?

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Speaker 1: Simply to prove that you can build a house for

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Speaker 1: a reasonable price.

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Speaker 2: Well, not really. I think I've just been frustrated sort

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Speaker 2: of looking at successive governments trying to make affordable housing

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Speaker 2: and doing it at twice what we've been able to

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Speaker 2: do it, and we just sort of put our thinking

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Speaker 2: caps on and thought, there's got to be a better

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Speaker 2: way to do this.

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Speaker 1: And there is clearly, and you've just proven it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Is it scalable or are they all one offs in

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Speaker 1: that sense?

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Speaker 2: No, it's absolutely scalable. We've optimized it down to something

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Speaker 2: that is the simplest and cheapest thing to build so

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Speaker 2: that it can be repeated. There's no alterations. It's designed

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Speaker 2: to be repeated and built by individuals or organizations.

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Speaker 1: Right, Without wanting to go too far down the track

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Speaker 1: of defending klaying or I do know that some of

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Speaker 1: their costs come in the fact that some of the

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Speaker 1: people that they put into those houses require a fairly

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Speaker 1: robust experience inside. Would your stand up to a bit

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Speaker 1: of you know.

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Speaker 2: A bit of bi Yeah, well, I mean look absolutely,

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Speaker 2: they're made of it's like a peace flat pack furniture.

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Speaker 2: Instead of the bits of plywood, it's made of colt,

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Speaker 2: which is cross laminated timber, so it's up to sort

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Speaker 2: of one hundred and twenty one hundred and sixty milimeters

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Speaker 2: six solid pine with that's the finish on the walls,

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Speaker 2: so there's no war pay, there's no paint, so they're

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Speaker 2: really robust.

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Speaker 1: Okay, do you do you want to take this somewhere?

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Speaker 1: Is this somewhere you're going or was this just an

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Speaker 1: exercise for you as an architect?

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Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. We've started a company called The Living

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Speaker 2: House and were we go. We're launching to the market

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Speaker 2: in a little over a month or six weeks time.

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Speaker 2: We're built. Yeah, we've built a prototype and rotaroo, so

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Speaker 2: it's we've proven that it can be done.

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Speaker 1: And I should point out this is excellent. So it's

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Speaker 1: three thirty three grand plus land, right, yeah, that's right,

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Speaker 1: absolutely yeah. So what in your summation is the major

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Speaker 1: issue with the cost of housing in this country? Is

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Speaker 1: it labor? Is it product? Is it design? Is it paperwork?

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Speaker 2: What is it? Well? I think it's the labors probably

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Speaker 2: the number one issue. A typical New Zealand house and

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Speaker 2: the way we're building them out of stick tumber, the

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Speaker 2: way we have for the last you know, two hundred years.

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Speaker 2: It's forty percent labor in any house, and in the

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Speaker 2: living house we've stripped that down to ten percent. So

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Speaker 2: taking the labor cost out is really one of the

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Speaker 2: big areas of attack.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, all right, go well with that, Rich, I wish

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Speaker 1: you the best with a rich Nache living house architecture,

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Speaker 1: texting me, So four thousand dollars is affordable housing? Holy,

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Speaker 1: what are you expecting to pay? What is it you're

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Speaker 1: expecting play? I can show you apartments in Auckland, and

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Speaker 1: yes they're very high end. But I can show you

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Speaker 1: apartments in Auckland for forty thousand dollars a square meter.

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Speaker 1: I can show you what I would regard as pretty

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Speaker 1: average house, regular house you'd look at and go yep,

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Speaker 1: I could. I could live ten thousand dollars a square meter.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what you can build for less than

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Speaker 1: four thousand dollars a square meter. I built a barn

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Speaker 1: relatively recently, which it's a nice barn, but it's certainly

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Speaker 1: not one you'd live in. But I built that barn

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Speaker 1: for any excess of four thousand dollars a square meter,

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Speaker 1: and there's nothing about it that go yeah, but you're

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Speaker 1: a wretch. Precker can it's nothing about that.

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Speaker 2: It was just hasn't got a batless pantry.

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Speaker 1: It hasn't got a buttless pench, It hasn't got a pantry.

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