What is the HomeSmart Homes project?
From our earlier research
Two pilot projects have led the way for the HomeSmart Homes project: 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
Making New Zealand homes sustainable requires a focus on both existing housing and new dwellings.
The new homes market provides a strong pull for sustainable building opportunities. New homes are where people get most of their ideas and it is the market launching spot for new products and services: new leads retrofit. The immediate problem, however, is to shift sustainable new homes to being a leading product in the new-build market which people associate with comfortable, quality living at an affordable price.
Beacon believes that it is possible to build new homes which meet a set of performance benchmarks, called the HSS High Standard of Sustainability®. Each benchmark has been researched and tested in live research projects: the NOW Homes®. These projects demonstrated that ordinary builders can build ordinary buildings which perform well and have a much lower environmental impact.
Our original plan
The HomeSmart Homes project 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. Each home would be evaluated and monitored while the new homeowners lived in them, to check its design and construction had in fact created a home that performed to a HomeSmart Home standard.
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. We hoped that a large scale project would generate homeowner interest and demand for homes with more than cosmetic benefits.
From a research perspective, we planned to develop a set of procedures and guidelines for designers and builders which guide the design and construction of a home which will meet these benchmarks: a HomeSmart Home. 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.
By working with group builders and developers to adapt their house plans to meet the benchmarks of the HSS High Standard of Sustainability®, we aimed to show that HomeSmart Homes can be shifted from a prototype to a leading product in the new-build market which people associate with comfortable, quality living at an affordable price.
The project now
The international credit crisis and tightening financial situation has forced a change of direction for the HomeSmart Homes project.
The new home construction sector has been 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 have been affected as their own developments have been delayed or changed.
Consequently Beacon has recognised that we are unable to recruit and build the 100 homes needed for the HomeSmart Homes project in the time available.
We have however spent considerable time talking to developers and builders throughout industry, and refining the guidelines and procedures to meet their needs. We believe the HomeSmart Homes Procedures and HomeSmart Homes Best Practice Guidelines together will provide a strong and practical basis for builders to build homes that meet the HSS High Standard of Sustainability®.
Additionally we are working 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.
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