| 81 BUILDING Modspace T T Rosa Watson Improving access to home-ownership Modspace buildings meet full NZ Building Code standards with a 50-year-plus design life, treated timber framing, recycled-glass insulation, vented cavity cladding, double-glazed low-emissivity windows, and Armorsteel UltraZen roofing and cladding. Kerikeri-based modular building firm Modspace is emerging as a leader in providing desperately needed high-quality housing to meet the need across the top of the North Island. The family-owned company was founded in 2016 by Andrew Abercrombie. What started as a solo operation providing planning, design and project management, expanded to manufacturing modular building components. Today, the business is a family operation, with Andrew’s sons Matthew and Hamish involved. Matthew manages all design and consenting, while Hamish oversees day-to-day operations and sales. In 2022, in response to New Zealand’s growing housing challenges, the business grew to include transportable homes, with the goal of making home-ownership more achievable and providing high-quality, safe housing. The Modspace range spans residential and commercial applications. The residential range is from a one-bed, 30sqm home to a two-bed, 70sqm home, and several options in between. Commercial offerings include bathroom blocks, offices, and accommodation cabins. The one-bed, 30sqm home is the most common build, having been used in a number of government programmes, Hamish says. There were 39 homes built for Cyclone Gabrielle emergency accommodation, and 17 homes across five Northland marae. In the residential market, the most popular size is the two-bed, 43sqm home. “We send the homes all over the North Island, and they are quite often used for parents who are downsizing on to their children’s property, or homeowners looking for extra rental income, while having the accommodation space for visiting family,” Hamish says. He says what sets Modspace apart is the end-to-end, single-contractor model. “We design, consent, build, transport, and install, and obtain the Code Compliance Certificate at the end.” Their buildings meet full NZ Building Code standards with a 50-year-plus design life, treated timber framing, recycled-glass insulation, vented cavity cladding, double-glazed low-emissivity windows, and Armorsteel UltraZen roofing and cladding. Hamish says the company’s track record with commercial organisations speaks for itself. “We have successfully delivered for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga), the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice, Te Puni Kōkiri, Toitū Tairāwhiti, BDO Pākihi Taitokerau, and Auckland Council. “These organisations have completed due diligence on Modspace as a supplier, and have re-engaged us across multiple projects.” In December 2025, Modspace was awarded the Auckland Council project delivering four new cabins at the Orewa Holiday Park – one an accessible, three-bedroom unit at 57sqm, one a three-bedroom unit at 42sqm, and two, two-bedroom units at 38sqm each. Completion is scheduled for September 2026. The project also included decommissioning three existing tourist flats on-site, which required handling asbestos, coordinating traffic management, and working with an arborist to protect listed pōhutukawa trees. Hamish says Modspace had the combination of full-service delivery capability, experience with council procurement processes, and accessibility design for the accessible unit to get the job done. In other projects, they delivered five, 50sqm, two-bedroom homes to the Tuapiro Marae Papakāinga project within a fourmonth window, 39 homes and eight ablution blocks across the East Coast at a rate of one home every three days for the Cyclone Gabrielle emergency response. They also delivered 17 homes across five Northland marae for the Te Tai Tokerau Marae housing programme, and a 60sqm, one-bedroom, private holiday home at Russell in the Bay of Islands, completed in 14 weeks. The company has been active in shaping national housing policy, advocating for reducing the regulatory burden that makes affordable housing difficult to deliver. Hamish says smaller homes carry significantly less risk than larger ones, but face the same regulatory burden. “The solution we proposed was a riskbased, self-certification model, one already proven to work in other trades.” Modspace worked directly with Minister Shane Jones to help develop coalition policy. At a local level, Modspace has also worked with district councils to streamline building consent processes, specifically for factory-built homes, reducing the time from order to a complete house build. “We see this kind of regulatory engagement as a core part of our mission of continuous practical improvement,” Hamish says. “If New Zealand is serious about solving its housing crisis, the rules need to keep pace with what modern construction methods can deliver.” A significant milestone this year has been the move into a purpose-built factory, expanding production capacity, and setting the business up for the next phase of growth.
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