Companies join to produce affordable Maori-style pre-fab homes
An affordable pre-fabricated house scheme has been launched, with places having aspects of Maori exterior and interior design elements.
Craig Wilson of Britomart’s TOA Architects in Auckland said that business had joined with Christchurch head quartered Mike Greer Architectural, Nelson-head quartered cross laminated timber-manufacturer XLam Building Solutions and others to launch Maori Modular House.
Pre-fabricated elements will be made off-site, then the homes assembled in a faster, cheaper, more controlled construction method, Wilson said.
The business is marketing:
● Tuhunga-a-Ruru two-bedroom 65sq m home for $246,000;
● Ruapeka two-bedroom 87sq m home for $266,00;
● Akatoki three-bedroom 98sq m home for $310,000;
● Uru Kahikatea four-bedroom onelevel home, in design development, no price available yet;
● Puhikaioreore two-level fourbedroom home, specifically designed for tighter city sites, also in design development, no price available.
Craig Wilson of TOA said prices included GST but did not include land, earthworks, piles or foundations, site, geotechnical or engineering or any below-bearer works. Clients in Huapai, Opotiki and Napier had expressed interest in building the homes, he said. “We aim to build about 1000 places by 2020.”
Kitchen splashback designs are based on tukutuku panels, using the design of the taniwha teeth, Wilson said. Interior wall timber panels feature the pataka school of flounder design.
“We’re investigating carving and weaving patterns,” he said of the homes in traditional Maori colours of bright red, black and natural timber finishes.
High-profile pre-fabricated housing businesses eHomes of Kumeu and Matrix Homes of Wellington both went under, but Wilson said the new MMH business was different.
“Components of the houses are produced in different factories — walls in one, floors in another.” This concept spread the risk, he said.
“It’s a pool of companies, not all the eggs in one basket,” he said.
“Mike Greer will manage the process from a building point of view, getting the components made and to the site, then assembling them.”
The first home will be completed mid-March in Napier, Wilson said.
Aspects of contemporary Maori design have also been used in housing at Northcote on Auckland’s North Shore. In the scheme by Homes. Land. Community. and Housing NZ Corporation, terraced and stand-alone housing was designed by the late Rewi Thompson of Isthmus, using his everyday homes concept.