Design-and-build company adapts to conditions with a split
Thursday, 23 April 2026
“Grin, bear it and adapt” is the new norm for construction companies trying to navigate challenging conditions, including the fuel crisis, the co-founder of Box says.
Box, an Auckland-based design-and-build company in operation since 2009, has announced it will be splitting into Box Studio (an architectural design service) and Box Build (a construction service).
The decision is in response to the tough economic climate, which has recently been unsettled further by the war in the Middle East.
Dan Heyworth, the group’s co-founder, said they have been reading the signals like everyone else and, given the state of the industry overall, had to figure out how to adapt to the conditions.
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“The big meaty builds have become fewer and further between, and people are spending money much more cautiously, so the scope of work has changed from those big builds to renovations.”
Over the last few years there had been a shift where people wanted just a design, or just a good build, making the joined up design-and-build proposition less relevant in this market, he said.
“It seemed best to split the business in two, so clients can choose to go on their own journey.
“They can still access our full wraparound design-and-build option, but now if they just want to use our in-house designers or solely contract our build team they can.”
Box Studio would consult on renovations, extensions and additions, as well as new builds, and that would feed into the expanded project base, and introduce more flexibility in-house, he said.
The broader group, which has 35 staff, also includes a pool company Box took on a few years ago, a move that has worked well for the company.
Heyworth said they thought the pool division would be the first thing to be affected by the downturn, but that had not proved to be the case at all.
“Post the pandemic, homeowners are more interested in reimagining their existing houses, and the success of the pool division reflects that people are focused on enhancing what they have got.
“It is about reshaping to meet market demand, and ensuring a broader range of clients can access our services. It will all help us to weather the environment.”
The company did not know how the fuel crisis would impact it if it continued for a prolonged period, but they were looking at the longer economic cycle, and felt the country was in a bit of a hole, he said.
“The prevailing ideology is restricting us from investing in the future. We are looking at a long-term picture where the current disrupted environment is more of a new norm.
“There is no free cash flow in the economy so people are much more conscious of where they are spending. And companies such as ours have to change and adapt to that.”
When it came to the construction industry specifically, there was an identity crisis around what the country was going to build, and how, and the supply chains that it was going to use, Heyworth said.
“We need to look at ideas and examples from elsewhere, such as the New South Wales housing pattern book which aims to reduce the time and risk involved in building.
“We also need to look at local supply chains more, and at how we can reinvigorate and stimulate local industry when it is so hard and risky and it’s just getting worse.”
Getting more products from overseas onto the market would not help, especially in the current environment where reliance on imported goods, particularly petroleum based ones, was problematic, he said.
“The more we can do locally the better, and what happened to the idea of counter cyclical investing, and putting money into projects to drive the economy?
“It comes back to the regulatory framework because if we can make it easier to build and give people more certainty then things will happen more quickly.”
Someone with vision should come in and shake up the system, but in the current environment it was necessary to “grin and bear it and hope things get better”, he added.
“For most of the industry people that are still hanging on in the business, that's become the new norm.”