A Product Approach.
What would the housing market look like if a house could be built in a matter of days? With our product approach, Flexi House explores just that.
To address New Zealand’s housing shortage and build the home of the future, we’re developing a scalable housing product that will allow us to build faster and better.
Our product approach to architecture enables efficiency of construction, a high-performance envelope, and the use of healthy, sustainable materials that are good for people and the planet. Standardisation and offsite construction give us a high degree of control over all these variables and enable us to deliver a high-quality housing product.
The New Zealand construction industry is currently structured for one-off builds or built off plans. This process tends to lead to significant redesign, customisation and rework to every build, and yet new developments quite often end up looking the same. Raw materials are delivered to site where contractors and subcontractors work together to construct a building from scratch. On-site construction has been used for centuries but, unfortunately, it doesn’t lend itself to scalability. As a result, it struggles to solve the biggest issue in New Zealand housing: supply.
The alternative to on-site construction is off-site manufacture using Design for Manufacture and Assembly. DfMA is a process in which building elements are fabricated off-site in controlled environments before being transported to site and assembled together to form a building. It is a common practice overseas and quickly gaining traction here in Aotearoa.
The Flexi logic takes off-site DfMA construction a step further. While other prefabricated solutions productise an entire dwelling, Flexi has created a product library of standardised wall, floor and roof panels. These components can be configured to create a multitude of different spaces to suit the needs of a client. This allows greater flexibility for the client to create a home that works for them as opposed to buying a house off a plan.
At Flexi, we believe product thinking can solve the housing crisis. Products differ from architecture in that they are repeatable and typically mass-produced. Their production becomes more efficient over time, costs can be controlled and reduced, and accurate data can be collected. This means no more buildings running behind schedule, and no hidden or unexpected costs.
There are many benefits of our product approach - the ability to scale and mass manufacture components, workflow optimisation for fast and efficient fabrication, the ability to configure products in a variety of ways to achieve different design outcomes, reduction of costs of construction at scale, a higher degree of cost certainty, and the ability to add or remove components as necessary without creating waste.
Productising architecture also allows us more control of the waste produced in construction. Currently, construction waste is a major contributor to landfill in New Zealand, with approximately 40-60% of waste coming from the construction industry.
Flexi is committed to reducing the environmental impact of construction by optimising material usage and prioritising the use of renewable and natural materials. Timber-framed buildings are quintessentially Kiwi, so we’re retaining the materials and aesthetics of the classic Kiwi home while creating the home of the future.
Kiwis need a place to call home. Flexi House is a productised housing system designed to help people into their forever homes faster. Through our product approach to architecture, we’re aiming to shape the future of construction in Aotearoa.
Join the journey at Flexi.