The fold-out home

BY SIMON EDWARDS

As neighbours watched, a crane in the suburb of Taita lifted what looked like a jumbo shipping container on to foundations built at the rear of the section in Norris Gr.

Less than 48 hours later it had been transformed into a house.

The project is the first foray into Wellington of Habode. These pre-fabricated, steel-framed, glass-walled baches or small homes are made in China to Wellingtonian Rod Gibson's design.

He says he's sold about 30 of them in Australia, a dozen in New Zealand and is now starting to get enquiries from around the world.

Mr Gibson was brought up in Wainuiomata.

"My back yard was a farm that went all the way out to the reservoir. I watched the mall being put in."

Asked if he's a builder or architect, he replies "professional dreamer"  but will also admit to a "designer" description. He told the Hutt News that in the late 1990s he married a South Islander and they settled in Wellington, "with one of the rules being we'd eventually shift south". That has not happened, but his wife was somewhat placated with the idea of a bach, perhaps in Central Otago.

Mr Gibson says he started thinking about designs but was soon hit by the realities of trying to oversee production of building remotely, the expense and "the difficulties people have with builders and their timelines".

"It evolved from there, really."

From sketches he drew in 2000 for a modular, pre-fabricated home, by 2003 he had put together a detailed one-10th scale model on his dining room table. A full-size version was made in Napier a year later, and then he took his plans to China, where he says the first company he got into negotiations with liked his ideas so much, it copied them.

Lesson learned, Mr Gibson says he found another partner, patented his key concepts and has not looked back.

Habode is not a shipping container with the walls knocked out. Rather it's a pre-fabricated home which, to keep freight costs down, can be folded up to conform to an international shipping unit 15 metres long.

Lifted onto foundations on its site, the floors fold out and walls and roof fold up. Aluminium modular walls encase double-glazed windows with argon gas trapped between the two panes, or other panels with a pressed, coloured face encasing heat resistant foam. Mr Gibson says the result is good insulation, and myriad options in terms of window and door placement and size. The roof steel is 1.65 millimetres thick compared to the New Zealand house norm of 0.5mm.

He's found a ready market for his Habodes in Australia, particularly in Western Australia's cyclone zone. They have been load-tested as able to withstand 250kmh winds.

They come already wired, with modern kitchen and bathroom appliances built in. A building team can make one habitable within a couple of days of it being craned in, at a cost of $149,000 installed.

Foundations (usually $3000 to $5000) are extra, as is decking and optional modular add-ons such as extra bedrooms.

The local builder working at the Taita site, Dean Hopkins, says people needed to get beyond a mental mind block that something that folds up and is shipped from China cannot  be surprisingly spacious and modern.

Mr Hopkins said he thought his ''old school'' father might scoff a bit, ''but he quite liked it'' and recognised its treated steel and aluminium exterior would be low-maintenance.

It is a small home but Mr Gibson says an architect, his wife and two young children are living in one in Marlborough.

Section sizes in suburbs like Taita are often ideal for subdividing/infill housing and statistics tell us so many New Zealand families these days are elderly couples, or single parents with one or two children.

It is not only the first Habode in the Wellington region, it is also the first time Mr Gibson's company - International Housing Solutions - has bought a section and is installing an Habode.

He thinks he will  be using this approach more, as some people cannot be bothered with identifying sites and dealing with builders themselves.

Our visit to Norris Gr last week coincided with that of four officials from the Department of Building and Housing.

Mr Gibson has made the first application in New Zealand for the department's new ''multi-prove'' pre-approved consents for buildings of the same design that meet certain standards. Mr Gibson is confident of approval.

They have already passed inspections by councils around the country and if he gets it, future building projects will duck a lot of expense and red tape.

He says the company's website is now drawing inquiries from as far afield as Chile, Vanuatu, Greece and Canada, with  much of the interest being because Habode units are ideal for remote locations.

Mr Gibson has also put in a tender for a Government-sponsored housing scheme in the Solomon Islands. For that hot climate, he envisages louvres replacing the glass windows.

- Hutt News