Australia's first living building

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Everyone seems to be asking how do they do their part in creating sustainable buildings. There are so many small things to be done as well as large projects that encompass entire buildings. The most challenging, yet amazing, way to achieve net zero is through the Living Building Challenge, the world's most advanced measure of sustainability in buildings making up seven performance areas that include site, water, energy, health, materials, equity, and beauty. 

There is a project currently underway in Australia meters from the Pacific Ocean and ironically in a most unlikely place - the town of Wollongong, New South Wales, known for its steel and coal production.  With a natural environment that includes some of the most amazing beaches, it offers an enviable lifestyle. Yet, being Australia's ninth largest city, it's also well known for its dirty industry.  In today's world, this City recognized its need to diversify and become more sustainable.  The new University of Wollongong's Sustainable Buildings Research Center will educate through the performance of the building itself and will also become a testing station for sustainable building and retrofitting technologies and will take a leadership role in addressing the skills gap in technical training.  Retrofitting existing buildings is critical in this city as new buildings are replacing existing stock at only 1-2% per year. 

"The imperatives of the Living Building Challenge set the bar for us and encouraged us to be inventive, innovative and ambitious, which is something we've taken very seriously as the first Australian project to pursue Living Building status." - Professor Paul Cooper, Wollongong's Building Sustainability Research Program

Photo: Contributed

The site has remarkable solar access with over 200 sunny days a year and just over 1,000 mm of rain per year. A temperature range of between 14-21°C and prevailing coastal winds made it easier to design and build efficient and naturally ventilated spaces.  The indoor environment will operate in a naturally ventilated mode with fixed sunshade devices and cross ventilation for up to 70% of occupied time. Spare plug in points were provided to allow plug in's of experimental cooling technologies to be used when needed. Solar power can be expensive to harness and the University of Wollongong is partnering with leading Australian companies to optimize the size and case for solar at the facility.  Ultimately the site will produce more energy that it consumes via rooftop solar panels and a wind turbine and will be able to "sell" some of this power back to complete the net zero cycle for energy. 

Water is a huge concern in Australia, largely due to a decade of drought which officially ended in 2012.  In a country known for drought, net zero water makes good sense, however it's often not that simple.  The local health authorities rules and guidelines surrounding water has made the harvesting and recycling of rainwater on site very difficult.  They have achieved net zero water by harvesting and treating its own rainwater except for a bottle fill station.  Some of this water goes to irrigation and maintenance areas such as plumbing.

QUICK FACTS AT WOLLONGONG:

• targeted 60 kwh/sqm energy consumption
• bike parking and showers
• natural zero VOC paint
• waxed X-board joinery
• highly efficient mixed mode mechanical system including a ground source heat exchanger and in-floor hydronic heating/cooling
• on-site rain water harvesting and treatment with a 65,000 litre rainwater tank
• 32 automatically controlled ventilation zones with manual over ride
• highly efficient LED lighting and lighting control system with daylight harvesting
• extensive monitoring and building control systems

 

Regardless of whether this building is the first to be awarded Living Building status, the process has paved the way for meaningful conversation about sustainability in not only this part of the world, but other areas.

 

If you're thinking about your Kelowna real estate, wondering how to build or renovate GREEN give Paige Guernsey, a top Kelowna Realtor ® a call direct at 250-862-6464.

Talk to you soon...

Paige

 

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.