Hybrid infill : the search for an affordable housing solution

Abstract

The provision of quality, affordable housing is vital for our communities and country. The current housing shortage, and lack of quality, affordable housing in Auckland provides the foundation for the relevant and significant inquiry. The intensification of land within the city boundaries through infill development, the implementation of prefabricated construction methods for improved construction efficiency and productivity, and the exploration of smaller, more efficiently designed dwellings; are three ways identified and examined as methods to increase the supply of quality, affordable housing.

The review and analysis of literature and precedent outlined the many benefits of prefabrication in the provision of quality, affordable housing, and it’s greatest defeat in the limitations that are typically addressed through site-specific design. Recent literature has identified the hybrid, panel + module typology of prefabrication, largely unexplored in New Zealand, to have the greatest potential to incorporate responsive, site- specific design, for better architectural outcome, with the efficiencies that prefabrication has been proven to provide.

The development of the hybrid system for application to a unique infill, social housing programme, with diverse and wide-ranging site conditions, provides the constraints and requirements of the inquiry. The design process documented provides a model to the methods and considerations required in the development of a hybrid prefabricated system for quality, site specific, affordable, infill housing in Auckland.