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LAUNCHED BY PREFABNZ TO FURTHER THE CONVERSATION ABOUT ALTERNATIVE HOUSING OPTIONS, THE SNUG COMPETITION HAS PROVEN AN EFFECTIVE ENGAGEMENT VEHICLE.
The program, which launched last March and closed late 2018, furnished a catalogue of six finalists and six winners with a range of innovative solutions targeting prospective NZ homeowners.
PrefabNZ CEO Pam Bell told Built Offsite the competition was a response to New Zealand’s affordable housing shortage, particularly in a climate where typically large scale homes no longer meet the growing demand for homes suited to one- or two- person households.
Secondary home options or additional dwellings on existing sites have been identified as a solution to this challenge.
“PrefabNZ was blown away by receiving over 180 team entries and 90 designs for consideration by the diverse panel of judges. Each entry was subject to scrutiny for design in terms of architectural quality, sustainability, lifetime use, buildability, and of course prefab-ability.”
The SNUG People’s Choice prize was awarded to Flip, an adaptable supplementary dwelling with multifunctional applications, from a single storey two bedroom dwelling to two-storey multi-functional backyard apartment.
Meanwhile the Easy SNUG is market ready, with multi-proof consent. The Easy SNUG requires a lead time of 8-10 weeks with prices starting at $82,100 plus GST and delivery. It has a 60m2 floor area, with smaller footprints available 39m2 and 55m2.
Bell commented:
“The SNUG home competition has captured the imagination of a wide range of teams of architects / designers, manufacturers / builders and students / apprentices (each team had to have a mix of all three). PrefabNZ has effectively created a platform on which a diverse range of entries can sit – to create more possibility for housing in a market that is dominated by the single-family, single-mortgage, ‘lifetime-of-indebtedness’ model.”
“PrefabNZ has an advocacy relationship with the Ministers responsible for housing, building and construction, and urban development, as well as their supporting officials at the newly created Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (M.HUD), alongside the existing Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment. The KiwiBuild unit sits inside the M.HUD and recently ran an international Invitation to Pitch for Offsite Manufacture. Over one hundred responses were received and the New Year will be a key time for the chosen respondents to report back to the KiwiBuild delivery team.”
Bell confirmed next steps for the ‘SNUG home in my backyard’ program will involve producing full-scale prototypes for the public to experience the homes first hand.
“We have the support of councils in our two largest cities, Auckland and Wellington, to help make this happen, so watch this space.”■
SIX SNUG WINNERS
SIX SNUG FINALISTS
