Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Special Guest - Bernie O'Fagen and Julian Addington - Timber Titans: New Zealand's Mass Timber Trailblazers
The untold story of New Zealand's mass timber revolution unfolds as architectural designer Bernie from RM Designs and structural engineer Julian from ENGCO share their remarkable 10-year journey pioneering sustainable construction methods. What began as a response to the challenges of post-earthquake Christchurch has evolved into over 50 successful projects that demonstrate how thoughtful collaboration can transform an industry.
Their partnership reveals a refreshing counterpoint to the stereotypical architect-engineer rivalry. Instead, they've embraced a "no one of us is as smart as all of us" philosophy that brings contractors, manufacturers, and consultants to the table from day one. This early collaboration has been their secret weapon, allowing them to optimize designs for constructability while solving complex problems around acoustics, fire safety, and structural efficiency in mass timber buildings.
The conversation takes us through their breakthrough project—the Bealey Backpackers—where they reduced foundation costs from 20% to just 7-8% of the budget by leveraging timber's lightweight properties. We hear how their work with Housing New Zealand became a watershed moment, as they meticulously documented mass timber's advantages against traditional construction across more than 20 performance indicators. From three-story walk-ups completed in just 8.5 months to innovative projects like the Pounamu Pathway with its distinctive "America's Cup sail" design, their work spans everyday residential buildings to iconic cultural landmarks.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is their honest assessment of challenges facing mass timber adoption. Despite proven successes, every project still requires alternative solution documentation due to building code limitations. They've also evolved from timber purism to embrace hybrid approaches that pragmatically combine materials for optimal performance. Their parting wisdom? Understanding manufacturing capabilities from the outset is crucial—know what can be built before designing it.
Whether you're an architect, engineer, builder, or simply passionate about sustainable construction, this conversation offers invaluable insights from pioneers who've learned through trial and error so you don't have to. Ready to rethink how we design and construct buildings? This episode is your masterclass.
About RM Designs
47 Springfield Rd
(cnr Springfield & Clare Rd)
Christchurch
New Zealand
Phone
Ph: (03) 354 6341
E-mail
info@rmdesigns.co.nz
About ENGCO
ENGCO is a multi-disciplinary national consultancy with expertise delivering large scale projects, worth in excess of $100 million, and at the boutique end of the market, individual solutions for one-off domestic builds. The core of our business is in structural, civil and geotechnical engineering services, and we also have Green Star approved professional accreditation for our involvement with sustainable energy projects.
Our key values: Passion, Principles and People.
Website
Ladies and gentlemen, we are live. This is the moment you all have been waiting for. It's time for the global sensation, the one, the only the undisputed heavyweight podcast in the world the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. And now here's Paul Kramer, your host.
Speaker 2:Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. Wherever you are in the world today, welcome to the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. This is Paul Kramer, back with another exciting episode. And when I say that I am really keen to do this particular podcast episode, it's true, not just because the two gentlemen that are sitting in the other room on the other side of the ditch are in that room and it would be highly embarrassing for me to say anything otherwise in front of their presence, but I really do think that we have a very, very special episode to bring to you today. So, my compadres in, I guess, the industry in New Zealand, over the last sort of probably seven years that I was involved in the industry sector, and now it's 10 years since we've sort of known each other. I have two people, I have Bernie and I have Julian. Bernie, tell everyone who you are, what you do and where you come from, and then Julian will kick over to you.
Speaker 3:But welcome to the podcast gents you come from and then Julian will kick over to you, but welcome to the podcast gents. Oh, pk, thanks for having us. We've been watching your podcast emerge over. The last must be three or four years. Now Five years. Five time flies. Five years. It's great to catch you up, more than anything. But so I founded RM Designs in 1997. And we're architectural designers, christchurch-based. We've always been pretty steady around a staff number of 10. So they've always, I guess, had an eye to the future about what's going on. We started in a lot of fit-out design actually mostly hospitality.
Speaker 3:And then when Christchurch had the earthquake, we had sort of merged into full-blown architecture at that stage and we were into larger buildings and our minds turned to alternate building solutions. And our minds turned to alternate building solutions really subsequent to the quake, based on lack of labour, lack of good contractors and just seeking a way of doing things better, so it was about 2012, 2013, when I met Julian.
Speaker 2:That's a great segue, julian. Tell everyone who's in mass timber construction, listening land all over the globe, who you are. No pressure, just give an introduction, right no worries, okay, yeah, g'day everyone.
Speaker 4:Um, I'm julian addington, uh, one of the founding directors of. I've been running about 15 odd years and, like Bernie said, we're sort of linked up together for, yeah, it must be at least about seven or eight, possibly even 10 now. So, yeah, we're predominantly structural engineers, although in the last few years we've brought in civil and geotech really to support our structural offering. I can talk more about that later. But Mass Timber's been a real passion and it's how Bertie and I connected actually back those years. We were involved right at the start when Mass Timber first arrived in New Zealand PK you would have remembered this well and we got a knock on our door. We were at the time playing around with a SIP panel, had a 44-gallon drum in the back shed and doing crack tests and the rest of it, and Robert and Ian Jack and Sam Leslie turned up with this very interesting looking product and we quickly scrapped what we were doing and said, no, that looks awesome. So we jumped on board with them and helped sort of write the design guide.
Speaker 1:Helped with, you know the engineering side of the early testing and then, from there, the journey.
Speaker 4:It's been fun, hasn't the journey? It's been it's been fun, hasn't it? It's been a lot of fun, yeah, and we've just learned a tremendous amount along the way. Still learning, of course, on every, on every job. I think, bernie, your line from a couple of months ago, I think, summed it up pretty well we've worked on what? 50 projects together or something, and we're yet to get one right.
Speaker 3:There's always something right Always you get a little bit of mental improvement. Pk isn't there, you know whatever you're doing.
Speaker 3:But yeah, so it was a sliding doors moment, really looking back at it, because we were offered a job to take it through, to develop design on a site which was a very poor quality here and I guess our main avenue really Bailey Avenue and behind a pub, and the client was looking for two floors of sort of three and a half star backpacker accommodation and the first idea we had we played around with containers and then kind of went like you know, the offshore risk and reward thing didn't sit well with us. They weren't from Vietnam, were they? They were yeah, yeah. So I think we learnt enough about them.
Speaker 3:On volumetric, you know we have revisited it but it kind of never really grabbed us. What we did know about this particular site was that the project wouldn't be built on concrete and steel because whoever was going to have a crack at it was going to expend more than 20% of the budget getting out of the ground. So we met Sam, leslie and the rest of the crew from X-Lam and Julian and we started to play around with it. We got out of the ground for 7% or 8% of the budget and from that time on we didn't look back. Did it work out?
Speaker 4:to me it was about 10% of the overall budget difference, wasn't it Because we managed to lighten the structure by using gas timber? It was a key benefit at that time, wasn't it? That we managed to lighten the structure by using gas timber was a key benefit at that time, wasn't?
Speaker 3:it. That was the key thing and I think we kind of you know, if you look, we learned to apply other lessons from that. But it took us a bit of time, okay, because we all know how it goes working with a head contractor who's only versed in conventional and they can be reluctant to open their box on P&G. So you really don't know what happens until you end up with a good five or six or even seven of your own case studies that you can then talk to good contractors, but maybe uninitiated, in the mass timber industry. So that was number one.
Speaker 2:Billy was an amazing project because it really exemplified using mass timber in its purest form, you know, using it for a structural, honeycomb-type structure layout design.
Speaker 2:For anyone trying to imagine this backpackers, it was industrial sort of aesthetic panels, this sort of hybrid between the amount of knots that were in the timber versus trying to maintain an aesthetic and it actually did a good job right and staying in the place, like when you are actually in the presence of the place.
Speaker 2:It's quite calming and soothing with the mass timber surrounding and cocooning you. But the innovation for both of you that I like to commend and I actually say I still use it to today was dropping down the ceiling in the corridor areas to facilitate the MEP, the maintenance and the services sector that then going to funnel services in and it actually didn't change too much the presence of the space because you'd walk in this corridor area, have a lower ceiling but by the time you walked in a room it didn't equate to being a difference, because people don't look up when they're walking around, they look straight ahead. So all they looked at was the view that was in front of them. Great project, really well executed, still an exemplary project, and there's pictures on the X-Lam website and probably like yourselves as well, but if anyone wants to go and have a look at the Bealee Backpackers, you can do that. I also might just say that, because you two blokes are from Kiwiland, there will be a transcription of this entire conversation so people can understand it Sorry.
Speaker 3:It's a Sunday, I can see it coming.
Speaker 2:I have one question for you, right? Because I know in the land of reality, architects and engineers sometimes struggle to get along. What's the secret to your relationship over 10 years plus, from 2012 to now 13 years to getting along and doing 50 projects together?
Speaker 4:That'd be a lot of adventure, wouldn't?
Speaker 3:it? I think it probably is. Yeah, I mean, we're both um outside of work, both do what I think some people would consider extreme, um, extreme adventure sport. Uh, particularly Julian who like skis off the top of 3000 meter mountains, 3000 meter high mountains, and I'm just a bit of a runner, but I think we're probably so. We've really enjoyed those times together, so, but we became friends. After we're working together, I think, um, you know, we've had RM's, got this, I guess, almost a throwaway line.
Speaker 3:You know, no one of us is as smart as all of us, and it's just incredible during the inception of a project where good ideas will come from, and so that encompasses both our teams, but also some really good other external consultants, who doesn't take you long to work out who they are when you bring them into the fold about the ones who are actually looking for solutions from the time they sit around the desk with a few sketches on it or at least start pointing out the issues that will need to be solved.
Speaker 4:I think maybe it's a bit of that. Yeah, I think what you're touching on there. Pk is probably, I think, one of the kind of key recipes I think for making Mass Timber Project successful, and that is, if I can speak for Bernie, you're incredibly unique in the market with the mindset of just what you've said of trying to bring the right people around the table right at the start of the project. And part of that correct me if I'm wrong here but part of that, I think, is probably due to that hospitality experience where you've had to think off-site manufacturing from the start of it. So you walk into a place, you know maybe the overall bulk of what you need to fit it. So you walk into a place, you know maybe the overall bulk of what you need to fit out, for example, in a bar, and it's all joinerism. And when you look at a mass timber project, that's what it is.
Speaker 4:It's just a big kitchen set and right from the very inception of a job you have to be thinking about what's our access onto the site? How big can the truck be? How are the panels? How are we going to arrange them here? Where are we going to put the crane All the way through to your intricate details of PK, what you touched on with running the services before. But all of that needs to be thought of at the front end. If it's not, then you've got a big cop up, haven't you? And we've seen that. We've learned the hard way on some jobs where, right late in the project, you know someone's turned up for one reason or another, they haven't been part of the team. Might be a bummer, for example, on one job turned up thinking it was just another traditional construction, and they go and smack the massive hole through some of that kind of key connections that had been, you know, modelled to massive detail a year ago.
Speaker 4:So I think what you're touching on there is a really kind of key for me, anyway. If you're trying to make a mass timber project successful, cost effective, hitting all the various metrics that you've got, it's all about the right team early.
Speaker 2:That synergy, Bernie, is something you have to hold as a value. Collaboration, tolerance of others, acceptance, working together, team-oriented these sound like corporate culture taglines, don't they? But in reality the translation has to be that you have to hold these as an individual for the group to hold and conserve those values too, on a project.
Speaker 3:Oh, you know, like definitely you know. I think you know we might have brought the right thinking to the table, but we were both very lucky to have it fine-tuned by Gary Caulfield, g1, who was a strong influence in how we started thinking, how we were going about things, and who really introduced me to this. What was novel 10 years ago? This idea of ECI, where the head contractor's sitting around the table while you're still making a decision, maybe on who your manufacturing supplies are. They may follow a short time afterwards because you've got to do something. Okay, they're dimensionally different, but there's a process there and you know, I think that has been. If there's a few things that set us aside, that's one of them. Just garnering the experience of boys and girls who've been building for like 30 years, you know like it's incredibly valuable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gary is a pivotal player not only in Australia and New Zealand, but also did a lot of work in Singapore with the NTU project, and our thoughts and wishes are with him and his family. He left this world a few years ago and it was not a good way. So just a shout out in a segue please look after your mental health when you're in the construction sector. It can be very, very brutal at times, but what you can find in the lessons that come from the legacy of people like Gary is this sensibility of trying to do things in a different way and think differently, and I guess Apple exemplified think differently as a concept when they launched their Macintosh computers, and we're still, to this day, trying to apply thinking differently to the construction industry, and it sounds like you guys have found a formula.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well we're still working on it, aren't we? Yeah, yeah, like, what sort of happened next from there was bloody incredible. You know you hear these stories from people about. You know how did you sell your house? Someone knocked on my door and wanted to pay for it. Well, we had the business version of that, really, where Alistair Miles good, strong, local company here, who we built papinui club at the same time, which was a big mass timber portals out of hunters and nelson at the time pk and um he had a connection to housing new zealand. And again you talk about the projects that barely the barely lodge backpacker once stimulated. That led to a research and development project with Housing New Zealand. Now, a few things happened along the way. I think we built 12 or 13. Four of them fell into the R&D model. That was a real pivotal moment, we feel, for our teams and, you know, probably in all honesty, for mass timber industry.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there was an opportunity there where we got to pitch mass timber against you know four different methodologies. So we had a traditional methodology and then there was even a concrete one in there wasn't there. There was, yeah, our hybrid model versus full CLT, and they actually put a lot of resources into measuring. Probably around how many different KPIs would it have been? Probably at least 20. Everything from noise on site to truck movements to, obviously the key ones being cost. There's also waste in there, man hours. They might have even measured days or downtime set leave from site.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how the people on site felt, billed in with it by way of, I guess, cleaning this feed, yeah, as opposed to other products, and yeah, but we kind of some of those. It was interesting, really interesting for us, because we started in pure CLT. These were three-legged walkers and we went round about the mouldy bush including stick frames, tying them together with Simpson strong ties, other fire implications that arose out of that, and we ended up back where we started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting. And the three-storey walk-up just for people to understand the concept, it's an initiative where there's either a parcel of land or a parcel of land about to be, with a house knocked down, and there's a rebuild on that site in a three-story setup with multiple apartments within the same complex where you park your car effectively on the street and you walk up to your house. Hence the name walk up. And the. I guess the engineering, julian and the architecture then had to meet the manufacturing and so at the time at xlam, when we were producing products down in the south island, we had to create these um, dfma, you know, designed for manufacture and assembly from your drawings and from your engineering, so we could ship it all the way up across the. It's the cook straight, isn't it for you guys, between north and south.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so then it would go up to, you know, auckland, for example, and end up on site, and that was a revolutionary process, and Housing New Zealand also went through the machinations themselves, didn't they? They started out with this design being mass timber moving away to other panelised products and then sort of coming back again, but it really did set the benchmark for what you could achieve in terms of social, affordable housing, and what's really surprising is that work was done 10 years ago. Like we're still trying to figure it out, but you guys already did it. So why does it not take hold? Is it politics? Is it constructions resistant to change? Is it government policy? But we're screaming for solutions globally, and there was one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a very good question. We do feel a little like that, I guess. As far as change of government's pipeline, I think maybe the focus on sequestering carbon has helped. I guess what we managed to do was take that and start to use it in the private sector and that led directly to projects like Haven Road, which is five levels of mass timber on a concrete podium with 31 apartments. The timeline around the building is a little bit murkier. We were sort of doing the street level walk-ups. Our best of those were 8 and a half months from site works to 18 families moving into units. Haven Road sort of got tied back to choosing manufacturers and delivery and you know, at a time here when there was a little bit of development funding up in there too. But I'm finished now and it's sort of a mix of affordable and probably upper end penthouse stuff in Nelson looking out to the pool.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Well, we started off sort of 2012 2013. Xlam came online to produce more commercially 2015, 2016, and then produced its plant in um in australia and then decided to feed in, and we've had red stag come online since then and we've had Timberlab join Red Stag. So there's a lot of history. Why don't we look back on some of your most memorable projects in the last decade, julian? What's the one that stands out to you and why?
Speaker 4:Well, we touched on the Beading Lodge. It kind of it's still a standout. Matched on the Beading Lodge, it kind of that's still a standout. I mean it's held the test of time really that project. And I guess one of the reasons why that particular project stands out is that the first that well, certainly I'm aware of anyway in New Zealand, first for interplanetary commercial space and first of many things, not just structure we were reasonably confident that we could make the structure work. We, you know, tested the product on.
Speaker 4:I actually tested it on a couple of my own developments but flying around the world to see what was happening in Canada and Europe at the time, which are a good 15 years ahead of Australasia, so well tested in the international space, but not in New Zealand and certainly not through our local councils. So I guess, as a quick side note there, there are a few differences from my understanding between New Zealand and Australia and the consenting process. In New Zealand we have to go for basically construction-level documentation for building consent and it's assessed by the local council authority to meet the building code, and they go through a tremendous amount of detail. So really kudos to Bernie for convincing the client that hey, we've got a good idea here and there's going to be some financial benefit, there's going to be a lot of other benefits as well, but it hadn't been done and we honestly did not know how the council would accept it and how they would interpret it.
Speaker 4:So we had the structure, like I said, pretty confident, but we had really very limited data on fire and acoustics in particular, A little extrapolated from offshore, really, wasn't it? Yeah, it was, I hadn't really. I mean, I know XLM, excellent, doing their best at the time to kind of get some testing and maybe use international dust and um inputting. You know new zealand, douglas, fern, radiated pine, but I hadn't been tested with the council yet any of the residential projects. They don't require the same level of acoustics.
Speaker 3:This is not the answer I expected in any way, peter, because I thought what Julian was going to say. My most memorable moment is Bernie, coming back from the coast where we had an aspiration to wrap a pokeka or a Maori cape around the Pounamu Pathway building, the mass timber building and the way we started designing it was. We had a couple of ribbons that the crew sort of strung across this little 3D model of a building and Julian's comment was it looks like you're designing an America's Cup sale which could pick this building up and take it down the road.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to.
Speaker 2:That's a good point.
Speaker 2:So that little curve you were going to. That's a good point. Well, curveballs are the way it's going to be thrown. But I actually just want to make a highlight before we move on.
Speaker 2:Bernie, is the consenting process in New Zealand being different to that in Australia is stark. Like we can over here put drawings on the back of napkins, present it to council with our concept and a word document and get approval and worry about the details later. Like it's very different, whereas for prefabrication and for design you guys have to do all your decisions up front, you have to convince the client to be on board. I mean, you've got to do a lot of work before you get to that point and I always thought and it was always the case that it was going to be far easier to get projects through that had a DFMA type approach, because all the decisions were done, the amount of detail in the design was done before we got to consenting, whereas over here it's the opposite way, which I think is a testimony to what you do over there and ensuring that things work before it actually goes on site and less risky, I would suggest, because you've got known knowns other than unknown knowns up front and just to tag into it.
Speaker 2:Eci fits into that right. That's the connection that you guys spoke about. Eci fits in because you're doing all the decisions up front. It took a long time in other parts of the world, and still is now, to get that concept right. So if anyone takes anything away from this podcast from New Zealand, the consenting process might seem like it's a constraint. It's actually an accelerator when it comes to designing in a different way with different materials.
Speaker 3:Bernie over to you.
Speaker 2:What's your most memorable project?
Speaker 3:Well, the Permanente Pathway one was special.
Speaker 4:That was the America's Cup sale. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that's sort of the culture, the cultural element around it, and just, it was a piece of land that had been forfeited to the Crown, purchased back by Macafio and Ngati Waewae, and the home, again at the Mwhirapa. The back of the building is an exhibition by Weta Workshop. So that's always been special. But we wouldn't have got there without Hornby Club. And the reason it's not so much the aesthetics that make that important, make that important, it's the lessons that the client was willing and trusting to let us pull together about mass timber versus concrete and steel. Now there are some software packages that make this sort of thing easier now One of those is VQuest, and working in with Barry has been very cool.
Speaker 3:But what we had to do with Hornby was we had to sketch in mass timber and concrete and steel, then we had to put them as elements together against each other and then we had to sit down with the contractor who we hoped got the job. But we had to go full tender there. We couldn't go, we weren't allowed. You know the constitution of the club didn't allow ECI Shit limbs, government money using the Mimby, rapid, rapid, rapid playbook, eci. And so the whole thing not only is that we have not going to live a show, but at least a stage, the project.
Speaker 3:So we've got it. We've got a cost, which is our design Bible, that we stick to. We know what each of those phases is, but we're also not only is it happening, you're avoiding escalation, because we're digging the site out while we've still got everyone sitting around the table talking about the best form of superstructure. So what Hornby did was you know. Then we got right to the stage where it was the things we didn't have to do like gym ceilings because we wanted to expose us to feet in a three-level atrium.
Speaker 3:We didn't have to shut a very, very busy street in Christchurch where we had to lift from outside our own space for probably three months. We could do it all from inside. So those we would never have converted or had the confidence to go that way and for the client to have confidence in our teams unless we had done probably 30 other projects before that and we had firsthand seen those things and we could call up these experiences. We could convert the qs, who always has a different idea. Keep the same one if you can, um, and and so on, yeah, yeah, so so for me, pkb homie club that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Uh, I love the interlude of the sidebars in the conversation, so don't apologize for that. That's fine. I probably didn't mention at the top end because we are always very familiar with the terms, but ECI is early contractor involvement. There is also an engagement with the supplier, early supplier engagement, which coalesces with the involvement from the contractor, whoever the primary main contractor is going to be. Because if you don't have all these people sitting around a table collaborating, just like you two good gentlemen do, on a regular basis, you will not get the benefits of mass timber. It just is very, very difficult to extract it.
Speaker 2:The other thing that people should know is you both know a lot about the construction process, not just your individual sphere of influence, being in engineering or architecture. You've got almost like a project management vision of what you want to do with the projects, which I'm presuming provides the clients with assurances. You know that. They then know that you know what you're doing and also that you can then guide them down a pathway, because half the challenge is do I really want to go on this adventure with Bernie and Julian or do I want to go down the traditional, which I know everyone else does? So 99, 95% of the world does this traditional thing and we're going to do this different thing. How do you guys keep it together that the clients come on the adventure with you? What's the secret sauce there?
Speaker 3:because I'm sure everyone in the world will want to know that I, I think we probably and some clients in fact most of them don't know they want a mass timber building. You get the odd. You know there's the odd exception Panami Parkway was one of those but usually there's queues that you can pick up from the very early concept phase, and an example would be New Zealand Artificial Rooms. So here's the three key bits of the brief. We are building this facility right next to our existing facility. It must be fast and it must be quiet.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that existing facility is a large hospital.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pretty much yeah. Number two is we are really interested in sustainability. Number three we really believe in the aesthetic of keeping our clients who have been through traumatic experiences and losing lungs, whelping them in and having something that feels warm. Now, what a classic brief, doesn't it? You just go.
Speaker 2:That is.
Speaker 1:You've just described the mass number building. You have yeah.
Speaker 3:So you start to use these cues. So you start to use these cues and then, if they don't exist, that's where you'll talk about other parcels of work and you'll talk about the fact that these things have been fully accepted. You're not the first. That's always a bit of a fear. This is no longer a novel way of building and so, like you sort of say, like 10 years in New Zealand now, and we are still getting iconic buildings pop up, but in the space we work in, like Living Park for example, but in the space we work in, we still see it as an everyday hero. I wonder if one of the other things is we never describe ourselves as timber purists, do we? We don't go. You know you must have a mass timber building. We'll go. It's horses for courses.
Speaker 4:You know it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think we started our relationship really started around projects that were hybrid and we've done this reasonably big loop, I think, around you know, full mass, the number of full mass projects. Certainly, looking at them that way, and it's interesting, we are pretty squarely back in that hybrid space. Oh, without doubt, yeah, that's a good point. There's certain times where it that hyperspace. Oh, without doubt, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, there's certain times where it just makes sense to throw a steel beam in yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a podium like what we have in Nelson and all this. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Where do we think the industry is going next, gentlemen? We put our crystal balls on the table and we go. What's the next thing? I mean, is it an extension of hybrid? Have we come to the point where timber has reached its renaissance and maturity and said there are now three main primary sources of construction material concrete, steel and timber? Three main primary sources of construction material concrete, steel and timber.
Speaker 4:And it's about blending these appropriate for the right project, for the right time, for the right purpose. We've always thought that I think timber well if I go out there and say it timber in New Zealand at the moment, I think, is struggling and there's possibly a few reasons for that. But one of the key reasons that we see anyway from a structural point of view is the lack of compliance path or clear compliance path. It's not in the building code, it hasn't been and it's still not. I think New Zealand is pretty slow in that particular area. It's a whole other separate conversation there.
Speaker 4:But until that happens, you know every single project is still considered an alternative solution, like my brother-in-law at Rocket Lab. You know he jokes to me often and says you're still prototyping. You know every single project's a prototype. You know they work out their prototype and then you know produce a thousand of them or more and send them to space. So I think until we sort out our compliance path, I can see it's, I don't know it's going to struggle in some respects but in others I'm very optimistic.
Speaker 4:We've believed in it for about 10 years. We've proven it in our own developments and many others. It's most certainly got a great place, but where does it go from here? Pk.
Speaker 2:That's the question.
Speaker 3:I sort of think on one side of the ledger you've got. So you know, a couple of the key major architectural practices in New Zealand are now sort of interested in designing some lovely stuff. Some local bodies are starting to take a bend towards timber first. 90 Devonport Road in Tauranga, you know, is going to be an enormous come-have-a-lot, I think, to other councils about how you can go multi, I think there are about seven levels there, something like that, very much about post and beam structure, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Mix of LVL, blue lab, clt floors, you know. So there are these projects around there, like in the learnings. I think we probably need some smaller companies who are happy to put the harder graft in for your everyday project. You know the stuff that we're doing, which is three or four levels, you know, and sort of rounded that mid between 10 mil to 20 mil, and you know you have to work hard to do it. But the further you go the chances are of it getting built are better than it being a pretty render. You know, I think you yeah, it kind of have to be in for the duration.
Speaker 2:I guess is my take pk yeah, I'm hearing four major themes that have come out of this uh episode so far. First one is mindset, and that includes having a value of collaboration. Second one is thinking innovatively but applying that to the everyday, because I think that translation aspect is missing in a lot of uh communities, where they're trying to do something different but it doesn't always stick. Third, there's got to be a tolerance within the market, and I think you're right, julian, the hindrance of not having it in a code, even if it's like a deemed to satisfy provision and it's not very fancy gives confidence to the market. And then you're not always doing performance testing and prototyping, as you say. And the third thing is I think that it's maturity over time.
Speaker 2:I mean, you guys have done so many projects together and there's a trust and there's a reputation that comes along with it, and so I always think if you look at the construction industry change and you look at things like 150 years of concrete has come in, you know the time unit for change is not one year, two years, three years, it's likely 50 years. So if we look at the last decade, we're one fifth into that change of a global construction sector and I think it will change and we have circular economy coming in. We've got biobased materials, we've got different design parameters, we've got prefabrication. You know from all my own research all the industry players are pointing to change is coming. It's just how quick or how slow will that change come? So I think a future is bright, certainly bright over in New Zealand. While we wrap up here, julian, just give a big shout-out to your business and what you do and how we can get in contact with you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we're Ingeco. It's our ENG CEO. All Versions Engineering company. I'm one of the directors there. In terms of contact, just straight to me, julianconz, or via Bernie.
Speaker 2:Well, considering you both sort of seem to live in each other's pocket, it's probably okay to ring one phone and the other will just be handed over to the other person, right, Bernie? Pretty much you did right there yeah, how do we get in touch with you at RM?
Speaker 3:Bernie B-E-R-N-I-E at r for red and M for Mike designsconz. But also, if you're smart, you'll put on the office overlord, jodie J-O-D-I-E. Rest of the email the same. She runs the cutter here and does an amazing job of it.
Speaker 2:I'll also put your respective organisations in the show notes for the episode so people can get to your website through. That means Closing words. Gentlemen, what's the key thing that you've learnt in 10 years that you wish you could have told yourself at the start of the journey and whoever wants to go first with whoever can think quickest?
Speaker 3:my one is go and see the manufacturers understand what they can actually build and how they can build it and the optimum for them, and then that will stop you going down the path of. You know, a good example is the beautifully set wood span product. You know they run that out at 7.2 metres. We've designed a couple of buildings with that. That out at 7.2 metres. We've designed a couple of buildings with that. You know so until you knew that you were shortchanging yourself and your client about some other products you can look at we have found to a T. They'll take you in, welcome, you give you a cup of tea, talk about how things work best for them. You then convert that back to your design. I think that's my number one. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:It taps into DFMA, right. Yeah For manufacturing, and then Julian for assembly, right.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, and a number of others. That's a very, very good one, vern. Hard to beat that, I think mine would be go and find yourself of others. That's a very, very good one, but it's hard to beat that, I think mine would be go and find yourself a designer or an architect that has the good old Kiwi and Australian humility, that is willing to listen, that's willing to bring the right people around the table early.
Speaker 2:That's a really wise choice in terms of the people making the decision about who they're going to go with as a team, and I guess you guys would not have any problems if someone reached out and said hey, I'd like to take some of your wisdom.
Speaker 3:No no we've always been like that yeah, yeah, no, not at all, we're an open like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, not at all.
Speaker 4:We're an open book, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think the other thing that probably isn't noted all that often, julian, but is your work in working with people like X-Lam to support the development of engineering calculations and design guides, and how close you actually work with people like Sam Leslie back in the day in the early days to really drive the innovation, and likewise with you, bernie, working with people like Gary who was involved in Prefab NZ as it was called back then, offsite NZ. Now there was a true industry collaboration to support and this mimics what actually happened in Central Europe around Austria and Italy, et cetera, to try and develop Germany, to develop the mass timber market at the very start and the genesis of it back in the 90s, which is what grew to prominence and then exploded out into the world since sort of. You know, forte building landed in Melbourne, beardley backpackers landed in New Zealand, that house in the UK, and the rest is history right totally, yeah, 100%, I think.
Speaker 4:To add to Bernie's pick of finding a manufacturer, I feel like New Zealand manufacturers have done us more of a favour than what we've done them. I feel, like we've done them. I feel like we've learnt. We wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for X-Lamb, Redstack, Timberlab, Tech, Lamb, Woodspan the good New Zealand suppliers.
Speaker 3:Part of why we're a little bit reluctant to go offshore for supply because we just kind of feel some I think loyalty there and we know there are some savings and there's different stories about what they are. But I mean, how do you beat a relationship Like you're talking about? Seeing Leslie? You know now Timberland Red Stag was a key influence in the canopy at Punaamu pathway 1500 pieces, excluding fixings, fittings, of the canopy itself, made in five different factories around New Zealand and his input into that was massive.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just using that just quickly as an example. Was that you know we had that original ribbon, right, yeah? Or you know, hey, you know, try and make this stand up, yeah, and the truth of the matter is that it was a beautiful concept and I really wanted it to work structurally and we probably could have structurally but would have been difficult to manufacture. Yeah, and with sam leslie's input, which is hard to money and that's what I'm getting at is that we had a very limited budget for it.
Speaker 4:So without the manufacturer's input, that would have never been built. No, it's really as simple as that.
Speaker 2:I think that's got to equate into a discount on the next job, gents, I think if there's a Marty or a Jason or a Sam listening to this.
Speaker 4:I do have a house to build.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to do it for Big Slam, or Marty, who's going to rank for Redstone? One of the two of them.
Speaker 2:I think Sam will be ringing you guys going. Thanks for the shout-out at multiple time points in the podcast. To be honest, I'll have to make sure I tag him in online on LinkedIn when the episode comes out. But no, hey, listen, there is 15 to 20 hours of content we could go through and unfortunately we don't have that much time. However, I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast for the last 40 minutes and, you know, chatting about what's been happening. Uh, we might have to do a version two and maybe what we could do is dissect uh building and actually go through what were the steps in making it successful at each stage, because I think the legacy of sort of 10, 13 years that you've got in this industry sector and translating that into success could be very valuable for people who are starting out in other parts of the world where they've actually got nothing and wanting to know how to start out. So if you'd be agreeable to that in the future, that would be great.
Speaker 3:Oh look, I'd suggest sitting at your desk with a bottle of Pinot, between a PK and that one.
Speaker 2:I think even better than that, it'll have to be March 2026, the Paddock Club Formula One overlooking McLaren Garage Awesome wins Oscar's going pretty good, isn't he Oscar's going pretty good?
Speaker 4:Thanks for thinking of kept asking Oscar. You're only going pretty good, isn't it? Oscar's going to win. Thanks for thinking of us, mate.
Speaker 3:Congrats on your tenure and um. That's fantastic and really great to touch base again, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Thanks, julian, thank you, and uh, yeah, thank you. Ciao, pleasure, thank you.