A two-day short course on one of the industry's most important topics – sustainable building – will be running in Auckland and Christchurch in June, held by Otago Polytechnic.

The first call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for working with the Crown on the development of housing within Christchurch's new Central and Eastern frames has been released this week.

Introducing a new Detailed blog covering the many aspects of passive thermal design relating to the built environment.

Traditionally, building frames are wrapped with building underlays – which means waiting for days before the internal building work can be started.

See above for exclusive videos of Minister of Housing Hon. Dr Nick Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown speaking at EBOSS's Specified 2013 event. Dr Smith and Mayor Brown addressed the challenges facing architects, designers and construction professionals in the building industry, including the large growth projections and government approaches (both central and local) to meet these.

In New Zealand, we've seen a big increase in the number of solar products available on the market in recent years; but are all offers created equally?

Finally Nick Smith gets support from Auckland City regarding the Auckland Housing Accord.

In a country whose economy thrives off being labeled 100% pure, why aren’t we taking more advantage of our natural resources?

Steel framing is a growing trend and as such it's important the right people get the right information to ensure the integrity of the product arriving on site is not compromised due to a lack of knowledge or inappropriate design solutions.

With the increase in 3D design, it's no wonder services like Sketchfab are popping up. Claiming they will do to 3D visualisation what Youtube did for video, Sketchfab provides a simple service to enable designers to publish, share and embed their files in a visual and interactive way on any website.