Hi Lloyd — Nice update on Christchurch; despite all of the missed opportunities, it’s our ‘Go-To’ walking in the city holiday destination several times each year! Your tour guide missed some key architectural gems too like Cranmer Square apartments, several city parks surrounded by cute apartment units and the Arts Centre, almost completely rebuilt now and host to many regular community events and gatherings. Sure, it’s a work in progress, but it’s THE most popular destination for young families looking for a new life close to the great outdoors.
>>"the old rule that you can only have two of fast, cheap or good applies here in spades; with few exceptions, they went for cheap and fast." That shouldn't come as a surprise though because of the human element in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Who's going to wait years in temporary housing (think modular or tents) to rebuild a house, let alone an entire subdivision, while waiting on permitting and feasibility studies to be concluded on the adoption of wide-scale Passivhaus construction? And as Grok will inevitably point out, who's going to pay for that kind of upgrade if it were able to be mandated? I mean, if you have the means, sure—you can pay for an upgrade no problem—but the standard default that we've had for literally a couple hundred years is going to be utilized because the infrastructure exists (from banking, to blueprints, to workers, to equipment, and know-how) to get thousands of people back into homes as quickly as possible.
Australia is also plagued with houses with absurdly complicated roofs. A 200 square meter house might have 20 roof planes. Of course that means it's impossible to vent and difficult to airseal and insulate. And forget about easy solar. And expensive to build. We Americans look pretty stupid when it comes to house building until you look down under.
Hi Lloyd — Nice update on Christchurch; despite all of the missed opportunities, it’s our ‘Go-To’ walking in the city holiday destination several times each year! Your tour guide missed some key architectural gems too like Cranmer Square apartments, several city parks surrounded by cute apartment units and the Arts Centre, almost completely rebuilt now and host to many regular community events and gatherings. Sure, it’s a work in progress, but it’s THE most popular destination for young families looking for a new life close to the great outdoors.
>>"the old rule that you can only have two of fast, cheap or good applies here in spades; with few exceptions, they went for cheap and fast." That shouldn't come as a surprise though because of the human element in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Who's going to wait years in temporary housing (think modular or tents) to rebuild a house, let alone an entire subdivision, while waiting on permitting and feasibility studies to be concluded on the adoption of wide-scale Passivhaus construction? And as Grok will inevitably point out, who's going to pay for that kind of upgrade if it were able to be mandated? I mean, if you have the means, sure—you can pay for an upgrade no problem—but the standard default that we've had for literally a couple hundred years is going to be utilized because the infrastructure exists (from banking, to blueprints, to workers, to equipment, and know-how) to get thousands of people back into homes as quickly as possible.
Australia is also plagued with houses with absurdly complicated roofs. A 200 square meter house might have 20 roof planes. Of course that means it's impossible to vent and difficult to airseal and insulate. And forget about easy solar. And expensive to build. We Americans look pretty stupid when it comes to house building until you look down under.