Everything you need to know to build, renovate or just live in an eco-friendly and sustainable way. With loads of inspirational photographs of New Zealand homes, this book is packed full of practical and accessible information. It presents the modern home by moving from room to room, to look at structural materials, furnishings and general life hacks to improve your personal green-star rating. As well as the living spaces (kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, office, living area, utility rooms and outdoor areas) it also looks at the wider issues - why make an eco home at all? Also covered are- principles of sustainable building, choosing a property, building a team of professionals, foundations and floors, the structure and the shell. In a compact and colourful package, this book is both entertaining and informative. A must-have for all people with an eco-conscience.

"Our homes should be a safe haven. In this succinct, fiercely argued book, building scientist and Passive House designer Jason Quinn reminds us of all the ways New Zealand housing fails. He takes aim at the Building Code and the high cost of building average (or worse) homes. Most of all, this is a book concerned with how to do better. It makes an impassioned argument for much wider use in New Zealand of the Passive House building performance standard. Jason Quinn demolishes myths about Passive House concepts and demonstrates its relevance for New Zealand conditions. The theory is backed up with concrete examples of New Zealand’s first 24 Certified Passive Houses and concludes with the more diverse projects - apartment buildings, offices and tourist accommodation - that are being planned. Of interest to architects and architectural designers - and those among their clients who are interested in how their new home will work and feel, not just how it will look - Passive House for New Zealand is also an important read for anyone involved in the building industry and in making policy on health and housing"--Back cover.

The poor standard of current housing, and the inability of too many people on low incomes to access decent housing, is causing a cascade of problems that are avoidable. Housing affordability. Unhealthy homes. Wealth inequality. Environmental sustainability. Social mobility. The state of New Zealand housing is central to many major issues confronting this country. In this wide-ranging BWB Text, leading international housing researcher Philippa Howden-Chapman reveals how New Zealand has lost its way on housing. This succinct introduction, drawing on two decades of award-winning research, helps chart a new way ahead for housing that is healthy, inclusive and sustainable.

The decline of home ownership has struck at the heart of the Kiwi dream – so perhaps it is time to fashion a new one. House prices may boom or bust but the long-term trend is clear: for more New Zealanders than ever, home ownership is out of reach. Incomes simply have not kept pace with skyrocketing property prices. Generation Rent calls into question priorities at the heart of New Zealand’s identity. In this BWB Text, Shamubeel and Selena Eaqub investigate how we ended up here, and what can be done to ensure all New Zealanders – home owners and renters alike – live in affordable and secure housing.

Combining historical, literary and ethnographic approaches, Calling the Station Home draws a fine-grained portrait of New Zealand high-country farm families whose material culture, social arrangements, geographic knowledge, and linguistic practices reveal the ways in which the social production of space and the spatial construction of society are mutually constituted. The book speaks directly to national and international debates about cultural legitimacy, indigenous land claims, and environmental resource management by highlighting settler-descendant expressions of belonging and indigeneity in the white British diaspora.