Events

Fantastic event, brilliant speakers and great organisation. I had high expectations beforehand, they were exceeded!!!

Latest events

Thermal Bridging in Timber-Framed Walls webinar

Beacon’s Verney Ryan and Guy Penny take this informative webinar which explores our Building Research Levy-funded research into higher-than-expected percentages of timber framing in residential construction in New Zealand.

Attended by nearly 1000 people, this was clearly an important issue with implications for both regulators and builders/designers alike.

You can read about the research here or buy access to the webinar through BRANZ here.

Advanced Framing Solutions workshop

The Thermal Bridging in Walls research found that walls typically have much more timber framing than expected (34% compared to an expected 14-18%) resulting in worse thermal performance. Following that finding, this workshop for industry stakeholders focused on exploring pragmatic and buildable framing solutions for New Zealand which would result in a radical improvement to the thermal envelope.

The workshop featured sessions on:

  • Current wall performance: Preliminary results from modelling of case study houses (Guy Penny, Beacon Pathway)
  • The Zero Energy House (Jo Woods & Shay Brazier, Re/volve Energy)
  • Alternative wall systems (Glenn Murdoch, Theca Architecture)
  • Thermally improved construction details (Jason Quinn, Passive House Institute NZ)
  • Current exemplars and the Superhome approach (Bob Burnett, Damien McGill, Dan Saunders – Superhome Movement)
  • Medium density housing framing solutions (Shawn McIsaac, Oculus Architectural Engineering)

You can watch the full workshop here:

Past events

Eco Design Advisor conference 2019

Beacon was behind the successful 2019 Eco Design Advisor conference. With a theme of Housing Fit for the Future: The convergence of housing, energy and climate change, the conference attracted over 130 attendees over the two days.

The conference was all about how houses both have to adapt to climate change and mitigate it by reducing carbon. For houses, this is both a focus on heating and a focus on the embodied carbon in the building (what went into producing the products that the building is made out of).

The conference was opened by opened by the Right Honourable Dr Megan Woods, Minister of Housing. She was followed by keynote speaker Associate Professor Janet Stephenson (Director, Centre for Sustainability, University of Otago) addressing ‘Climate change, energy and housing – what is possible in NZ?’.

The conference presentations can be read on the Eco Design Advisor website: www.ecodesignadvisor.org.nz/publications/

Housing Matters Auckland

Beacon brought the successful Housing Matters series to Auckland with two events.

Community Housing Aotearoa and Beacon Pathway jointly facilitated an afternoon session on what good practice medium density looks like from a community housing perspective.  The event was attended by over 110 people from a broad range of sectors – community housing, developers, central and local government, designers, with some making the trip from Hamilton and Tauranga.

Then Beacon organised a tour of Auckland Superhomes for local architects, designers, planners, builders, developers, and other building professionals. The tour took in six Auckland homes that showcase high performance and innovative design, with the opportunity to learn from the homes’ designers and builders.

Housing Matters Christchurch

Housing Matters is a series of workshops and site visits which aims to bring investors, designers, developers, builders, researchers, regulators and planners together to

  • share information and latest research
  • explore case studies
  • develop opportunities for collaboration
  • focus on solutions for quality housing development in Canterbury.

Past Housing Matters events have included:

  • tours of local exemplar homes
  • a breakfast which focused on different strategies for the sector to survive the the construction slowdown in Christchurch
  • tours and speakers on local off-site innovation including a factory tour
  • a workshop on medium density done well, pocket neighbourhoods, gentle and invisible density, pathways to affordable housing.