I spent 5 days and nights in hospital over the last week.
It was a shared room - 2 other men and a woman who were fortunately bright and good company. One was about my age and the other two in their 80s. I lucked out in that we were able to have lively conversations with no mention of god, religion or holy seagulls to be had.
Imagine getting banged up with Robert in some kind of institution!
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I was reminded today while listening to National Radio of of one conversation we had about new-build housing in New Zealand versus what happens in Europe. We tend to build from scratch, in all weather which often means that the timber frames get saturated before roofs and cladding are installed. No wonder there's been so many issues with rotting buildings over the last 30 years.
We also don't have enough of an industry in building smaller units that are better suited to new home buyers and most houses are are prohibitively expensive.
We lamented the fact that we don't have a well enough established modular housing system in place like there is in say Holland and Germany.
The idea would be that a young couple, buying or building their first house could install a single or double cube or module that would cater to their current needs. In time, with children or improved financial situation (generally mutually exclusive) they could 'bolt on' some more cubes or modules to build up to the desired property.
There is no reason for the result to be cheap or tacky as there could be a range of quality options.
The advantages are in not committing too much capital up front for unneeded space and the ability to expand, in keeping with the overall look of the building, as needs demand.
A further advantage is that the modules can be built in a factory, indoors and out of bad weather and could be installed and finished in a matter of weeks not months.
An innovative country like New Zealand could excel at this and it is very surprising that the concept hasn't been mastered. I remember 40 or more years ago the kitset home industry in New Zealand was on the verge of taking off with e.g. Lockwood Homes but it sort of fizzled. I know that there are a lot of kitset variants around with some even being imported fully made up from Canada and Scandinavia (how stupid is that?) but there isn't enough of an industry to meet demand and, by volume, be economical. There doesn't seem to be any group creating decent modular housing to meet a range of budgets and needs.
Up until 1992 there was a government run and subsidised apprentice scheme in New Zealand that trained tradespeople to go on to careers fully backed by skills and regulations training. The government of the day abolished this and now, in 2018 we have the ridiculous situation of having to import the labour of tradespeople from China, India and Southeast Asia. Mad! Once layers of sub-contracting are set up the guarantees of building regulation compliance might as well be tossed out the window (if it is fitted properly and opens). The language differences is another problem. Remember the story (fable) of The Tower of Babel?
How much better would it be to have kitset modules built, to New Zealand building standards, in big factories by properly supervised tradespeople?
