Shipping containers were all the buzz a few years ago, finding uses as pop-up food trucks and retail stores or placed in tourist locations for exclusive views. Now a skyscraper competition has reignited the conversation demonstrating the opportunity for shipping containers to provide housing solutions, particularly for vulnerable communities. Alon...

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There are not enough homes being built for families, in Australia. Wind back to the mid-1980s and single detached houses accounted for more than three in four new dwellings approved for construction throughout Australia. Today, however, and more than four in 10 approvals nationally are for semi-detached or non-detached dwellings (townhouses, units, fl...

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Dispute Resolution is a fact of life. Building disputes can be resolved in a variety of judicial and quasi-judicial forums, three of the most common being arbitration, courts and tribunals. Often, the building contract will have a contractual provision that dictates which forum will be used to resolve a dispute. Unless there is an Act of Parliamen...

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It may be the great Australian dream but the notion of owning a quarter acre block in the suburbs is fast looking to many like an unachievable fantasy. Across all age groups, the aggregate proportion of all Australians who own their own home contracted from 71.2 per cent in 1996 to 66.9 per cent in 2011, according to the most recent ABS figures av...

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While resource companies continue to reduce headcount, workers and subcontractors within the building segment of the construction sector continue to experience some of the best conditions ever as home building activity continues to smash record highs. The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics actually reveals a modest 1.02 per cent ...

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