Modular and prefabricated construction is a $150 billion global industry and growing at 7 percent a year. Hong Kong is mandating it on public housing. Japan is using it to offset an ageing workforce. Canada is funding it at scale. Australia is still deciding. At some...
Canada has created a new government body to act as a housing developer, backed by $25 billion and a target to double construction output. It is one of the most ambitious interventions in a Western housing market in decades. Here is what to watch. Most governments...
New Zealand builders have just traded through what industry leaders describe as the worst recession since 1991. Some held their teams together. Some didn't. The ones who held on are now positioned differently. Here is what the evidence shows. New Zealand construction...
Japan's construction workforce is ageing faster than it can be replaced. The country is 20 years ahead of Australia on this curve. What it is doing now, and what it is failing to do, is a preview every building industry needs to watch. Japan has a way of arriving at...
Germany is running short of hundreds of thousands of homes while its construction industry reports a historic lack of orders. Understanding how the most engineering-proud economy in Europe ended up here matters for every building market. There is something deeply...
Labour came to power promising to fix Britain's housing crisis. The plans are ambitious. The construction workforce is not. Here is why the gap between target and delivery keeps growing. When the UK Labour government took office, housing was at the centre of its...
The United States set out to protect domestic industry. Instead, its own builders are caught in the crossfire. Here is what happened when trade policy met a four-million-home deficit. There is a particular kind of irony that runs through America's housing crisis right...
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Most people would have kept the prizes. The gesture is generous. The reason it lands so hard says something bigger about the cost of starting out in a trade right now. Oscar Cherry had every reason to keep the prizes. The 19 year old apprentice carpenter from...
The measure itself is not new. What is new is that the design detail is now on the table, and the window to influence it is short. The 30 per cent minimum tax on discretionary trusts has been coming since budget night. On 8 July, it moved a step closer. Treasury...
Michael Hopkins has laid bricks across the UK, Germany and Australia. His take on how we build homes here is uncomfortable, but it is worth hearing out. Michael Hopkins has laid bricks on three continents. He did his apprenticeship in the UK in the late 1980s, worked...
For the first time in a generation, someone is building a new steel mill in Australia. Not propping up an old one. Building a new one, on the same Newcastle ground where BHP made steel for most of the twentieth century. Greensteel Australia confirmed this week it has...