Frame & Truss Manufacturers Association of New Zealand National Conference

This Piece Written and Provided by FTMA New Zealand

FTMA NZ National Conference July 16 – 18, Sir Howard Morrison Centre, Rotorua

The FTMA conference will be held in the heart of New Zealand’s wood processing industry, Rotorua, from 16–18 July 2025. New Zealand appears to be at a crossroads regarding residential construction. We want more homes built faster and at lower cost. We also need robust and comfortable homes that serve our modern lifestyles and aspirations.  As home occupants, owners or investors we want to see better value in our homes in the form of lower build costs, lower operating costs and easier maintenance. How can we achieve most or all of these objectives?

Recent experience has shown that more elaborate offsite building manufacture in is a difficult business in New Zealand as indicated by the recent announcement to close Clever Core. For better or worse, the great majority of residential construction still comes off the ground in the form of humble frames and trusses delivered to building sites.

What can frame and truss manufacturers do to bring us a few steps closer to those high level objectives?

How do we need to change to be relevant and competitive in the 2030’s which is not that far away?

While much of the content is primarily relevant to the frame and truss sector, designers, licensed building practitioners and all those with an interest in wood based construction and the possible shape of residential construction in the future will be interested in what is on offer. There is a quality line up of presenters including David Hall of MBIE Building Systems Performance, Ankit Sharma CEO of the Registered Master Builders Association and Nick Sterling of Callaghan Innovation all helping us to understand where our sector and New Zealand construction in general is heading in the next 5 to 10 years. These issues and more will be explored.

Register at www.ftma.co.nz and see the conference programme here

Timber frames and trusses – still the core of over 90% of low and medium density residential building (image courtesy of VIP Frames & Trusses)

Full offsite building and panel manufacture has been difficult in New Zealand. Can we bring these two worlds closer together? (image from The Post, March 31, 2025).