The HomeSmart Home programme
From our earlier research
Two pilot projects led the way for the HomeSmart Home programme: the Waitakere NOW Home® and the Rotorua NOW Home®. Both homes, although designed differently, were designed to use less energy and water, to have a healthy indoor environment, to cost less to run and be affordable to build, and to use environmentally sustainable products and materials. Both were live research projects: the design, materials and products used were tested by monitoring the house while it was lived in. This gave us invaluable data on how well, or not, the home performed.
Our hypothesis
Beacon believes that it is possible to build new homes which meet a set of performance benchmarks, while being affordable to construct and operate. These benchmarks are called the HSS High Standard of Sustainability®. Each benchmark has been researched and tested in live research projects: the NOW Homes®.
Our original plan
The HomeSmart Homes programme began with a grand vision. Beacon planned to partner with group builders and developers on a large scale research and demonstration project to build 100 HomeSmart Homes around New Zealand.
Our goal was to engage the building industry in moving from ‘business as usual’ toward creating new homes which not only look great but perform sustainably as well. The monitored demonstration homes would support and prove the credibility and robustness of the procedures, and together they would lead to wider uptake of building new high sustainability homes.
The project now
The international credit crisis and tightening financial situation forced a change of direction for the HomeSmart Homes project.
The new home construction sector was particularly affected, with falling building consent numbers a good indicator of the impact on the building industry. Many of our potential partners for the HomeSmart Homes project were affected as their own developments were delayed or changed.
Consequently Beacon recognised that we were unable to recruit and build the 100 homes in the time available. However, we worked with the New Zealand Housing Foundation to test the procedures and guidelines on the design of a new home as part of a New Zealand Housing Foundation subdivision in Glen Eden, Auckland.