Buildings in New Zealand
The New Zealand economy is currently pumped up high on house construction and property speculation (early 2005), and on the shaky premise that bigger is better, most new houses are far bigger than will ever be actually needed, as families continue to get smaller on average.
This makes it difficult to actually buy a house that fits the needs and budget of an average family. Inflation in house size, the commercial push to sell large houses, and the expectations created - these all parallel the inflation in meal size that now afflicts some affluent societies.
People are being lured into buying unnecessarily large meals, kitchens and houses that look good on the plate, or on paper, if you can afford to pay for them. This does not mean we should all live in a hole in the wall, though some people actually do. There are other ways to live small, like out of the boot of a car (the pantry), with a one-sheet tarpaulin shelter, an open-stone hearth, and a stack of driftwood for fuel (residence of a great old geezer I once met camped by a beach in Taranaki, early 1980s).
A society will be strong if it can maintain diversity in thinking about what makes a place good for living. It would be a very dull world if we all wanted the same thing, in terms of design - which does not mean we should ignore the universal need for shelter. This requires more effort on the part of planners, architects, builders, and everyone else. This does not mean that poor people should accept having to live without shelter, nor does it mean that obscene wealth and resource-hungry housing should be respected. Between these extremes, there is still a lot of room for diversity.
To encourage interest in small buildings, here are some links to companies that build sheds. After looking at these, maybe we should think about the legal rukes for house-construction that apply in New Zealand... these protect home-dwellers against unsafe design, but they also inhibit creativity.
clearspan - very plain farm buildings.
gardenshed - fancier stuff
heartlands - southern style
kiwisheds - steel mainly
kiwispan - steel mainly
shacknshed - wood and steel
standardtimberitm - mainly farm sheds
theshedco - gallery not yet open
versatile - best pick: a 2 bedroom home from $12,500 (almost a shed, June 2006)