Better Building Day at Wao Summit 2026: Building for the next hundred years.
In a district growing as fast as the Queenstown Lakes, the buildings that last won't be the ones we throw up to meet demand, they'll be the ones designed to still be standing, and still giving back, a hundred years from now.
That's the driving philosophy behind Better Building Day at Wao Summit 2026. Now in its ninth year, the Wao Summit runs from 27 to 31 October across Wānaka and Tāhuna Queenstown under the theme Resilience in Action.
Designed for architects, builders, designers and anyone with a hand in shaping the built environment, the Better Building Day is focused on one simple but powerful goal: helping this district, and all of Aotearoa New Zealand, rethink how we design and build in a way that is fit for purpose for future generations.
Construction and demolition waste already makes up around a third of everything sent to landfill across the district, and as one of the fastest growing districts in the country, urbanisation is changing the landscape and locking us into decisions that are already impacting future communities who will inherit this place.
The programme has been shaped to address exactly that: how do we build well today, and build resilience for tomorrow, valuing nature, people, resources, repairability and connection to place. Every session offers ideas you can put into practice straight away, whether you're in the design room, out on the tools, or leading a business that will shape this district's future.
The day at a glance
Better Building Day is a full day at Rippon Hall on Thursday 29 October. It opens with the Better Building Brekkie & Trade Show, breakfast alongside local, regional and national businesses showcasing better ways of building.
The morning speaker sessions set out where the industry is heading. Architect Rafe Maclean, who designed Rippon Hall itself, opens with the story behind its rammed earth walls, larch trusses and recycled rimu floors. Wao’s Monique Kelly then introduces Journey to 2126, asking what our communities will actually need a hundred years from now. Professor Terri-Ann Berry (Environmental Innovation Centre) unpacks circularity and why materials matter, and Sam Parsons (Boffa Miskell) explores natural capital, how measuring the value of healthy ecosystems is starting to shape construction risk and investment decisions.
After morning tea, Charissa Snijders speaks on regenerative architecture, followed by Dr Karamia Müller on designing with Māori and Pacific values, and Lindsay Breen shares what 85 years of Breen Construction has taught the business about leading with purpose. The morning closes with a panel bringing those speakers back together for open discussion and questions from the floor.
After a Dripping Bowl catered lunch, participants head out for an afternoon on the new Better Building Tour, four stops around Wānaka hosted by the people and experts behind each project. The first stop is a home built almost entirely from non-toxic materials, timber, wool, cork and natural stone, with a ventilated stone roof that needs almost no maintenance and a timber frame that locks away carbon rather than releasing it. From there the tour moves to Bremner Bay and Kirimoko, where WAI Wānaka and Reset Urban Design explore water and catchment thinking and why what happens on one site affects the whole catchment downstream. Next is a visit to a Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust build, showing what affordable housing looks like not just to buy, but live in. The tour finishes at the Yakisugi Cabin, built from salvaged windows and doors and macrocarpa milled off the designer's own family farm, using a straw panel building system developed on site.
Participants at Better Building Day 2025. Photo credit Deanna Gerlach):
Buses return to Rippon Hall in the late afternoon for a final chance to connect before the day wraps up, a relaxed hour to debrief on the day's talks and tour with other attendees, ahead of the evening's kōrero. Stick around for The Future of Energy with Tim Crownshaw and Larry Blair, joined by Dean Dunning of Think Solar Group, for a systems view of New Zealand's Energy Future beyond electrification. It's a separate ticket, $15, with a $5 discount for Better Building Day pass holders.
Yakisugi StrawSIPs cabin from Charlotte Muschamp, speaker and stop on the Better Building Tour. Photo credit Biddi Rowley
Over the hill in Queenstown
Better Building doesn't stop at Wānaka this year. On Friday 30 October, Queenstown Airport Corporation hosts a free Better Building Brekkie at the Provenance Café, 7.30 to 8.30am, on how circular economy thinking is being applied to one of the region's largest infrastructure programmes.
Later that morning, Terri-Ann Berry runs Circularity Mythbusters: Greenwashing in Construction, a practical workshop on spotting genuine sustainability claims from the greenwashed ones.
Tickets on sale now
Early bird tickets have already sold out for the Better Building day, a sign of anticipation for this year's event. You can still grab yourself a day pass for only $90. The pass includes access to the breakfast, trade show, all morning sessions, lunch and the afternoon tour.
If a full day isn't for you, the Better Building Brekkie at Queenstown Airport is free to attend, and tickets to Circularity Mythbusters: Greenwashing in Construction start from early bird pricing $22.50.
Click here to book your Better Building Day Pass or Queenstown event tickets.
Wao Summit 2023 at Rippon Hall. Photo Credit Eiko Jones