Iconic building for the future | Waikato Business News | 12 October 2022

To say Iconic Construction’s founder and director Nick Lane was gobsmacked to bring home the Master Builders’ Regional Supreme House of the Year is an understatement.

Having only entered for the second time, winning a gold, regional category and making the top 100 in 2020, Nick was hoping for another gold for the stunning new build in Ngāruawāhia.

“We were ecstatic to get a gold in our first awards in 2020.  When we went into this one, I was thinking if we get a silver I don’t know if we’re gonna be happy about that. I know we do good work, but I’ll be ecstatic with another gold.” he laughs.

“And when we got gold, that was awesome. Then we won the category and that felt amazing to go 2 from 2. But when they announced our name for the regional supreme, my mouth is basically on the on the table. I can’t put into words how happy I was, I could barely string a sentence together.”

The home was entered into the New Home $500,000 – $750,000 category. Three Regional Supreme Awards presented at each regional event is a first for the 2022 – the under $1 million Iconic won, one for a New Build over $1 million and one for a renovation.

Designed by Edwards White Architects, Nick says the home delivered on the clients’ request for a beautiful home with timeless appeal

“It’s a very clean and crisp design. The way the roofline, and the facias coming down gives it the look of a very clean cap sitting on the roof all the way around. From the right angle it almost looks photoshopped onto the site, like it’s too perfect.”

After nearly 20 years in the building game, Nick is pushing Iconic into new frontiers and maybe some more wins at the Master Builders’ Awards.

Teaming up with QOROX as a regional partner, Iconic is currently constructing the first 3D Concrete Printed commercial building in the Southern Hemisphere.

Nick says this ground-breaking technology is the future of building, surpassing modular builds in time efficiency and waste reduction.

“It’s a massive game changer in terms of bringing together innovation, technology and construction. In our mind, compared to the likes of modular housing and prefab housing, it’s going to leave it for dust,” he says.

The 3D printed building they hope to have finished in time to enter the 2023 awards is a daycare in Forest Lake being built for Creators Educational Trust.

Nick says the fundamentals of house building has changed little over the decades relying on manual labour to stack bricks manually and hammer nails into wooden frames. 

“We haven’t changed anything for decades. We have power tools and management software to speed up aspects of it, but we actually take more steps over a building site than we did 40 years ago. Prefab and modular doesn’t change this.

“Using QOROX we’ve printed six sections of walls 15 metres long and three metres high, in under five hours. Within the space of a day and a half, we can have an entire length of wall finished inside and out.”

And there’s more concrete builds to come from Iconic, with two house designs nearly ready to be 3D printed.

Based in Hamilton, QOROX uses 70% New Zealand-sourced and the other 30%, which Nick calls the colonel’s secret spices, is imported.

“A lot of the raw material that we put into a house in this country is about 90% from overseas.”

Nick says a 3D printed home will shave seven weeks off the standard 200 square metre house build once they are building at scale, with increased sustainability and quality of the final product for a similar value to conventional stick framing.

Being ahead of the game is important to Nick, not only when it comes to using new technology but also in the skill development of the Iconic team.

They always do a walk-through of a build after completion, taking note of where they could improve.

“There’s always room for improvement. The main reason we enter the House of the Year is for our whole team who put it all together. It gives them a chance to show off a little bit, but also measures their standard against a national standard,” Nick says.

Originally from Wellington, Nick spent 2003 in Hamilton during the first year of his building apprenticeship and moved back in 2009 to set up shop in the Waikato.

He got a break in that first year doing bar and restaurant fitouts, alongside renos for family friends. The likes of Victoria Street Bistro, Easy Tiger, Shenanigans and Keystone, to name a few of the establishments he renovated or built from scratch.

“It was super creative work. One of the best parts of doing that work was definitely seeing people enjoying the space you helped create. There’s huge pressure turning around an empty shell, for Keystone it was eight weeks. So, there’s a massive amount of pride that comes from seeing people enjoying it, especially on that first night.”

What he learned from doing the fitouts is a core part of Iconic’s building philosophy.

“It’s what we try and do with these houses, by adding some really nice features and elements that doesn’t cost a lot more but make the place feel more thoughtfully designed.”