Dr William Tozer | RIBA ANZIA 📍

Ministers to announce significant changes to UK’s planning system Exclusive: Differences over changes to environmental and legal provisions to prompt economic growth hint at chaos at heart of government

‘A government spokesperson said: “The chancellor and the housing secretary are working together to reform the outdated planning system that’s been holding this country back – so we can build the 1.5m homes hardworking people need . . .”’

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Never was so little said by so many, for so long.

#architecturepresentations

In a Spanish Vineyard, an Unsung Engineer Finally Gets a Toast

‘He filed his first architectural patent in the late 1920s, several years before similar experiments by his better-known countryman Jean Prouvé’

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/r...

‘For decades, the prototypical dream house was one you would hardly need to leave . . . Today, many Americans would say that their dream house is simply one they can afford.‘

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/r...

Really?! That’s a pretty wild interpretation of that rule.

Australia has a $1 solution for the global housing crisis: a pattern book of architecturally designed homes The NSW Housing Pattern Book is part of a broader push to densify cities without resorting to high-rise towers – and it has struck a chord well beyond Australia

‘Within the OECD, only Canada boasts a similar project, having recently launched its Housing Design Catalogue, offering 50 preapproved templates for terraces and townhouses.’

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Loos was my doctoral subject, and that research informs a lot of what our practice does, but it was particularly satisfying to explore this further, even if we didn’t get shortlisted.

The Architect Liked the Model House So Much, He Moved In

‘On average, Type Five projects cost about $550 per square foot, including site work. That figure is competitive in the Bay Area, where new builds easily price out at $800 per square foot without site preparation.’

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/r...

‘What the Floor Plans for Famous Sitcom Homes Might’ve Looked Like IRL’

www.dwell.com/article/floo...

‘Can You Print a House?’: God, Robots and the U.S. Housing Crisis

‘built in three weeks or less by a 4.75-ton industrial printer that poured both its exterior and interior walls with lavacrete, a proprietary material made from pulverized red lava rock, cement and water that is squeezed out in layers’

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/r...

A restored Eichler home is for sale Explore a peerless piece of West Coast midcentury modernism

We need more developers like Eichler.

www.wallpaper.com/architecture...

I was very encouraged that this approach will increasingly allow this to happen.

Ian Moore’s lecture thoughtfully chose a selection of projects to illustrate a particular theme in his work, identified a number of repeated elements of his design strategy, and followed their development and permutations. Refreshingly self-reflective.

www.nzia.co.nz/explore/news...

UK Government Architect to visit Aotearoa Sarah Allan, the UK government’s chief architect, will be delivering public lectures in Auckland on 17 September and in Dunedin on 24 September.

Great lecture about the work being done by the UK government’s Head Architect, and her office, to foster great architectural design through changes to planning policy and processes.

architecturenow.co.nz/articles/uk-...

For Sale: Upper Lawn, Tisbury, Wiltshire | The Modern House Widely considered as one of the most significant examples of modern architecture, Upper Lawn was designed by the late architects and celebrated pioneers of brutalism, Alison and Peter Smithson. Rooted...

£895k for your own Smithsons building . . .

themodernhouse.com/sales-list/u...

I was fortunate to meet Sir Nicholas Grimshaw once. A charming person, who seemed to take a genuine interest in everyone he spoke with. What a career and life he had.

LinkedIn accidentally being funny.

There are so many ways the NZ real estate industry likes to hide sale prices. From ubiquitous auctions, through delayed and obfuscated publishing of sale prices, to off-market sales. Not sure this ‘cheap stuff’ will look so cheap soon though.

It’s in the interests of the banks to make houses cost as much as possible. They get roughly whatever that number is in interest over the course of loan. Deciding what they’ll lend is basically choosing what their own profit will be on the transaction.

Dead cat bounce from the people who’ve been waiting to buy for years, and assume ‘normal’ gains will resume shortly? I suspect this ‘spring sales season’ will be a wake-up call—glut of desperate sellers who’ve been hanging, entering the market as the crashed economy continues to bite.

Ponzis rely on new investment coming in at the bottom being paid out to earlier investors as supposed returns. Surely so many recent investors have lost all their money (mortgage deposits) through falling prices—or worse (negative equity)—that new investors won’t fall for the pyramid scheme.

Is that median house price as a percentage of median income on y axis?
Rents track income pretty closely, so the back of the envelope calculation I like to do is to apply wage inflation to house prices in 2000, to see what they ‘should’ be in 2025, without the private debt-fueled asset bubble.

OCR, you mean, right? Even at that level surely mortgage rates won’t be much lower than they are now. Makes no sense to pay much more in mortgage interest than rent, and have to find the repayments on top—particularly when capital gains look more than shaky, and a CGT might be coming.

I still there’s a lot of scope for continued price declines until the massive gap closes between the service value of NZ’s houses (rents) and its asset value.
But I’ve never seen a real estate industry with so little transparency on prices, which contributes to buyers behaving irrationally.

London house extensions often seem to look like shops bolted onto the back of houses.

They used to mostly look like Office shoe stores in unlikely locations, but many now look more like an independent cafe from Shoreditch just relocated to someone’s back garden.

A week late apparently, for those who celebrate.

Here’s what you were trying to make. Let’s see what you actually made. Nailed it!

Imagine suggesting that buildings with any other programme should be excluded from a major award because there are already awards for buildings with that use. 6/6

Houses for private clients continue to provide an unparalleled opportunity for architectural experimentation that can be very influential on the entire building industry, across all project types and sizes. The renovation and extension of houses included. 5/6

No one could seriously argue, for example, that Corb’s La Tourette is more important than the Villa Savoye, or Mies’s Seagram Building is better than the Farnsworth House, simply because they are bigger buildings and not private homes. 4/6