Welcome to WoodWorks
Greetings from your WoodWorks team. This week we showcase two key mass timber projects with considerable local input both in professional services and engineered wood design and mass timber supply. Mass timber is now gaining real traction in certain types of built environment and retirement villages for Summerset Group would be close to the top of that list. Mass timber has also played (no pun intended) a supporting role in the new BNZ Performing Arts Theatre recently opened in Hamilton. It replaced the Founders Theatre, built in 1962, which had a 50-year life. Speaking of popular mass timber building typologies, and looking across the Tasman, Monash University in Clayton has once again chosen CLT for a hybrid design for another student accommodation building project on their Clayton campus in Melbourne. Finally and naturally, the Liverpool School of Architecture is the ideal showcase for some stunning examples of engineered wood performing in a starring role. Happy masstimbering for another Tuesday!
24 March 2026
Summerset case study
One of Summerset’s major New Zealand projects is the 6-hectare Milldale Village, north of Auckland, centred around a new Regional Main Building (RMB) and surrounded by independent villas and townhouses....
24 March 2026
Monash University student housing
Jackson Clements Burrows (JCB) Architects are designing a new 252-bed student accommodation project at Monash University’s Clayton campus using a hybrid cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure, scheduled for construction start in...
Classifieds | Jobs & Tenders
And One to End the Issue
Saveloys Out, Spinach In
Stats NZ’s consumer price index (CPI) data gives a snapshot of what New Zealanders were spending their money on over the years, because it is adjusted at regular intervals to reflect our behaviour.
Here’s some of what it shows us:
Food ~ Our food habits have changed a lot over the years. Cheap pudding staples sago and tapioca dropped out of the CPI in 1949. Gooseberries followed in 1955. Herrings in tomato sauce left the basket in 1965 and tripe and sheep’s tongue followed in 1975. Canned corn was cut in 2017. Luncheon meat dropped out in 2020. Meal kits were added in 2024, at the same time as celery was taken off, replaced by spinach. And the humble saveloy, which was all the rage quite a few decades back, since the 2000s isn’t as popular.
Household ~ Brooms left the CPI in 2008, maybe coincidentally at the same time that house cleaning services came in. Coal and clothes irons were taken out in 2006. Dictionaries were removed in 2011 – perhaps reflecting the fact that the internet is fulfilling that function for many households. Decorating habits changed, too – rolls of wallpaper disappeared in 2017. Waterbeds held on until 1993. Cordless home phones and international toll calls were removed in 2020, and home phone lines and national toll calls were removed in 2024.
Entertainment ~ Technology has driven a lot of the changes in our spending habits over the years. 45RPM single records were taken out of the CPI in 1974. Pianos dropped out in 1993 at the same time as LP records. CRT TVs left the CPI in 2008 and camcorders were removed in 2014. Cellphone and internet services were added in 1999. MP3 players, DVD and Blu-Ray players all were culled in 2017. CDs were removed three years later. DVDs themselves were taken out in 2024, at the same time that cruise ship holidays were added.
Personal ~ Hair spray had dropped in use enough to drop out in 1988 but perms held on until 2006. Hair spray had been part of the basket since 1965, coincidentally the same time deodorant was added. Men had given up pyjamas in sufficient numbers by 2002 to see that item removed from the CPI. Four years later, eyebrow shaping and leg wax entered the basket. Men’s ties were removed in 2024 and replaced with headwear.
