17 year old Ihaka Timu-Keefe spent his early years building birdhouses at home. Now he's constructing an actual house for the Taranaki property market.
Timu-Keefe is one of 22 students who have spent the past seven months building a three-bedroom weatherboard home at the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT) campus in New Plymouth.
The project is part of the New Zealand Certificate in Construction Trade Skills and is currently listed for sale on Trade Me.
The cohort consists of 18 men and four women. Most are under 20 years old, with ages ranging from 16 up to 40.
Tutor and licensed building practitioner Stacey Hill says the property goes through the exact same council consenting process and inspections as any other residential build.
"The house is no different to a house built in industry," Hill says.
He suspects the student-built home might even be of a higher standard because they don't face the same strict commercial time constraints. This allows the class to focus on getting every detail right without taking shortcuts.
Despite taking their time to learn, the students finished the project three weeks ahead of schedule.
The house features a walk-in wardrobe, a main bathroom, and two toilets. It is fully insulated, wired, and finished with a mix of horizontal timber and vertical shiplap weatherboards.
For many of the teenagers on the course, practical work is a welcome change from traditional schooling.
Baden Graystone, 17, says he struggled in a normal classroom environment but thrived after trying the Trades Academy at WITT last year.
"I fell in love with building, so I decided to leave school and come and do this," Graystone says. "It’s better for me here because I’m better working with my hands."
Timu-Keefe agrees and points out that practical application makes subjects like maths much easier to grasp. He says he prefers "building maths" over "school maths" because the real-world context makes sense to him.
Abby Wallis is one of the four women enrolled in the Level 3 programme. She finds the precision of carpentry highly rewarding and says fitting weatherboards perfectly taught her a lot of patience.
"The sense of pride seeing the house come together and thinking ‘we did that’ is the key satisfaction," Wallis says.
With the project wrapping up, the students are looking ahead to their next steps.
Wallis hopes to secure an apprenticeship locally with a company that respects her skills. Graystone plans to move to Christchurch to look for work, while Timu-Keefe intends to head to Brisbane to join his whānau and begin an apprenticeship there.
When asked if he worries about the future of his chosen career, Timu-Keefe is confident; "AI can’t take over being a builder," he says. "We’re pretty safe."
