EasyBuild, the New Zealand prefabricated home provider, today welcomed Minister for Housing, Hon. Phil Twyford, to its Masterton factory to open a new show home village.

Although the production of carbon fiber goods may be steadily increasing, recycling the material still remains challenging. Thanks to research being conducted at Washington State University, however, it may soon be possible to grind up carbon fiber waste and use it in new-and-improved pervious concrete.

A Chinese development company planning to fly in 200 overseas tradies for an Auckland hotel build are prepared to pay only three-quarters of the normal hourly rate - with further deductions to workers' pay for travel and accommodation.

Feb 27, 2018  - Disruptive technologies are redefining the construction industry, specialist tutors at Ara Institute of Canterbury say, and both industry and education institutes must catch up fast.

Feb 21, 2018 - Look around you. Well, actually, look up. If you’re inside a modern building, there’s every likelihood that you’re surrounded by heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. You might even be in an au courant structure where the HVAC ducting is exposed, lending the space a chic, industrial feel. Whatever the case may be, it’s undeniable that HVAC technology has given rise to the architecture that we work and live in today. But how does all of this ducting and air management come about? Well, architects and drafters have to build these systems into their plans.…

Feb 15, 2018  - The Government’s decision to rule-out funding for embattled company Fletcher Building is a refreshing change from years of corporate welfare and a bad habit of taxpayers’ money being used to bailout private businesses, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, says “The previous Government used our money to bail out Solid Energy, Rio Tinto, and even Mediaworks. It’s great news for taxpayers that the new Government is starting their term by refusing to continue that policy.” “Company bailouts are socialism for the rich. Shareholders don’t have to face any risk for…

Feb 14, 2018  -  The construction union, E tū says it is working to clarify the effect of Fletcher Building and Interiors’ huge loss on its members at Fletchers. “We’re still coming to terms with the fact that the country’s biggest building company is no longer bidding for new commercial projects, which is just extraordinary,” says Ron Angel, E tū’s Industry Coordinator for Engineering and Infrastructure. “We’re trying to find out what happens next, but we will have members affected by this – though it’s currently unclear how many,” he says. Ron says union organisers had visited Fletcher sites in…

A rather enlightening article posted on engineering.com by Roopinder Tara that has attracted a lot of interest. While the U.S. dawdles with much needed domestic infrastructure upgrades, China is already engaged in a project so massive that it will tilt the Earth in its favor. The trillion-dollar Belt Road Initiative (BRI) is a plan for a web of transportation routes (road, rail, shipping lanes, more—all leading to China) that will be created or expanded over the next 30-plus years. The BRI’s main purpose is to facilitate trade. China, the world’s leading producer of exports, no longer wants to rely on…

Jan 25, 2018  -  The Democratic Unionist Party has backed a crossing between Northern Ireland and Scotland, proposed in response to Boris Johnson's suggestion to build a bridge between Britain and France. A bridge across the Irish Sea was proposed by Scottish architect Alan Dunlop as a direct response to the "Boris Bridge" suggested by the UK's foreign secretary, which would see a 22-mile-long crossing built between Britain and France after Brexit.

The Waterview Tunnel forms part of Auckland’s Western Ring Route and incorporates New Zealand’s

Jan 20, 2018  -  The concrete contains a fungus that produces calcium carbonate when exposed to water and oxygen.  If cracks in concrete can be fixed when they're still tiny, then they can't become large cracks that ultimately cause structures such as bridges to collapse. It is with this in mind that various experimental types of self-healing concrete have been developed in recent years. One of the latest utilizes a type of fungus to do the healing. Inspired by the human body's ability to heal itself, the concrete was created by Congrui Jin, Guangwen Zhou and David Davies from New…