Architect Victoria

Can we help societies thrive in a world we do not control?

Can we anticipate the unforeseeable, perceive the unexplainable, and plan something unbelieveable?

What if we can?

Creating a Sustainable Built Environment Across Victoria

Through a deep technical understanding of the buildings, infrastructure and environmental opportunities of our cities, we are committed to helping our communities thrive sustainably.

From developing strategies for green buildings and placemaking of urban projects, transitioning to carbon neutral or building resilience, WSP is supporting clients across Victoria to become Future Ready.

For more information, visit wsp.com/en-AU

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Level 15, 28 Freshwater Place

Southbank, VIC 3006

+61 3 9861 1111

melbourne@wsp.com

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At Partridge we deliver solutions with creativity, ingenuity and passion. We achieve this through collaboration, insight and clever thinking.

Partridge have 38 years’ experience in Structural, Remedial, Hydraulic, Event and Civil engineering with a reputation for delivering innovative building solutions via a genuinely collaborative approach with architects and stake holders. Partridge approach each project with passion and enthusiasm to solve the challenges and maximise the unique opportunities each site presents.

Climate action

26 Architects Declare, sustainability performance and the changing profile of architecture

Interview with Ivan Harbour and Avtar Lotay, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

34 Climate works

Micheal Li looks at the role buidlings play in mitigating climate change

36 Aligning values

Billie Giles-Corti discusses density and health in the future of cities

40 Breathe Architecture

Interview with Jeremy McLeod and Madeline Sewall, the value of being a carbon neutral practice

50 Our place in the world

Caroline Pidcock, Australian Architects Declare, considers what it means to be an architect in 2020

52 Decarbonising buildings

Kate Nason looks to Brussels, New York City and Vancover as exemplar cities that have reduced their carbon emissions

58 On communication

Rachael Bernstone on how to engage clients and the broader public on climate change

60 Melbourne 2030

Ross Harding looks at reengineering the city

Profile

64 BKK Architects, Mihaly Slocombe Residential alterations and additions that are zero-emissions ready

76 Eastop Architects

Interview with Liam Eastop

82 Slice

New projects from Architecture Architecture, Ha, Noxon Architecture and Branch Studio Architects Advocacy

84 Conditions for innovation

Sophie Patitsas, Office of the Victorian Govenrment Architect, on designing back better

86 Executive summary

Leanne Hardwicke, Australian Institute of Architects, on the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements

86 Net-zero carbon housing

Graham Hunt outlines the policy and regulatory changes for residential buildings in Australia

Architect Victoria

CELEBRATING 90 YEARS OF THE AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS

As we mark our 90th year, we’ll be looking back on how Australian architecture has shaped our cities and communities, recognising the rich history and bright future of the architectural profession.

As we slowly move from the virtual back to the physical, the essence of being together once again will be the main ingredient of our practice culture. The contributions in this edition demonstrate the visionary thinking and practice of the many bright minds on climate action. The underpinning of a sustainable future is in our hands and that of many others in our industry. In contributing to all forms of building fabric, new and existing, we must advocate and convince our project collaborators at all levels that carbon neutrality is the single most important design principal for any constructed outcome.

Aligned in our thinking and actions, within our respective small, medium and large practices, this positioning should and must be emulated broadly by the decision makers we provide our services to and directly engage with on a day-to-day basis. Convincing client stakeholders to re-imagine the success measures for their long-term building assets is key. Asset owners who also share this longer-term vision in their respective domains, require incentive measures linked to action in order to procure this vision. While we may lead by example, it is time for a broader industry lead. Our contributors are providing insight on many current actions; our members collectively have a strong voice. However, collectively as an industry we can amplify the urgency and steer this in the right direction.

Welcome to the new Spring—Summer edition of Architect Victoria, my first as State Manager.

It is a great privilege to join the Institute and help influence positive change in the profession. The architectural profession provides complex, nuanced, strategic advice that contributes to culture through the built environment, and shapes our future. Its blended approach of art and science, form and function, pragmatic and poetic, let alone our role with client and contractor, is often poorly understood by external parties. Hence, the true end-value that architecture provides is one that has been difficult to quantify to external parties. However, the long-term value and holistic thinking of architecture and architects has never been more important. The role and value of good design is one that must be brought into sharp focus, as it is a fundamental pillar of a healthy, humane society and a sustainable planet. As professionals we have a duty of care and a unique opportunity to make a profound and important difference for future generations. I’m greatly encouraged by the incredible work our members and the Institute are delivering, and with a collective approach, to positively address the critical issues in front of us.

The guest editor for this edition of Architect Victoria is Stefan Preuss, Associate Government Architect at the Office of the Victorian Government Architect. A long-time advocate for sustainable design, Stefan is a member of the Institute's national Climate Action and Sustainability Taskforce recommending a range of policies and programs to National Council to address the challenges posed by climate change. Having studied at Technische Universität Berlin, Universität Kassel and the University of Wales, he holds Masters degrees in Architecture and Environmental Design, which entrenched a building physics and building technology approach to architecture. Having worked locally and internationally in professional practice, we are delighted he is our guest editor for this critical issue.

Bill Krotiris

Tim Leslie

Victorian Chapter President

It is with great pleasure and an honour that I write to you for the first time as Victorian Chapter President.

Victorian State Manager

As we celebrate nine decades of the Australian Institute of Architects, we acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners, their continuing connection to land, water and Knowledge, and their ongoing and living heritage stretching back tens of thousands of years. With the understanding that sustainability is fundamental to the health of our environment, in this issue we celebrate a strengthened commitment to sustainability performance, both to reduce our carbon impact on production and distribution and sustain a strong focus on guest-edited content, supported by the Editorial Committee.

Printing an extended volume twice yearly, we will also be publishing throughout the year across our media channels, including Community: a new engagement platform. With a new Victorian Chapter President and State Manager, we continue to celebrate the work of our members recognising exemplary projects both within and outside the awards format. This edition includes a focus on sustainable, zero-emissions-ready homes, either side of the climate action content (pages 26—63), guest edited by Stefan Preuss. Our suppliers lists in some of the interviews and project-based articles provide a framework to consider or reconsider locality to impact carbon footprints in residential projects. The talent and product is there.

Editorial Director

Emma Adams

Editorial Director

Emma Adams

Publications Manager

Mike Adlam

Guest Editor

Stefan Preuss

Editorial Committee

James Staughton (Chair)

Elizabeth Campbell

Laura Held

Tom Huntingford

Yvonne Meng

John Mercuri

Justin Noxon

Sarah Lynn Rees

On the Cover South Melbourne Life Saving Club by JCB Architects. 5 Star Green benchmarked, with active measures including a 36-kilowatt photovoltaic system to offset all Greenhouse gas emissions. The building encourages community, accessibility and amenity.

Photo by John Gollings

Design Direction

Annie Luo

As I'm proofing this volume, I've just caught a glimpse of Fitzroy pool in the WOWOWA render (page 61). Ha! My neighbourhood for some time now (more than twenty years). Back then I visited Havana in a greening cities program. Focussed by necessity (ie limited fuel), everything was within a short commute by bike or walkable. With limited means to move from city to countryside, we even had to wait for a third or fourth person to jump in a cab before it would go anywhere (privateheld cars operating as cabs – uber before uber – all the iconic Cuban US-manufactured automobiles you can imagine). Local food markets popped up in disused car parks where produce was grown nearby or on-site and without petrochemicals. Restricted resources placed on the country by the US Embargo yielded benchmarks for creating sustainable, self-sufficient cities. This edition on climate action brings a number of professional voices and actions into focus. Aligned and ready to make a difference, hopefully, a difference that has impact.

Publisher Australian Institute of Architects Victorian Chapter Level 1, 41 Exhibition Street Melbourne, VIC 3000 architecture.com.au

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Printing

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Acknowledgements

The Victorian Chapter and Editorial Committee acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live, work and meet across the state: Boon Wurrung, Bunurong, Dja Dja Wurrung, Eastern Marr, Gunaikurnai, Gunditj Mirring, Local Custodians of the Land, Martang, Taungurung, Wathaurung, Woi Wurrung, Yorta Yorta.

With thanks to our Gold Patron, Carey Lyon

Bill Krotiris photo by Chris McConville

This Publication is Copyright

No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the Australian Institiute of Architects Victorian Chapter.

Disclaimer

Readers are advised that opinions expressed in articles and in editorial content are those of their authors, not of the Australian Institute of Architects represented by its Victorian Chapter. Similarly, the Australian Institute of Architects makes no representation about the accuracy of statements or about the suitability or quality of goods and services advertised.

The built environment sector is responsible for about one quarter of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and therefore a major contributor to the climate crisis. As many architects have recognised, it is time to take matters into our own hands, placing sustainable design strategies and technologies at the forefront of everything we do. The well-established benefits, in terms of health, asset value and operational cost savings, speak for themselves.

It may seem strange to focus this issue on responding to the climate crisis when we are confronted with a more immediate health, financial and social crisis. But there is good reason to believe that the world will eventually find a way to overcome, or at least live with, COVID-19, and to recover from its devastating aftermath.

On the other hand, unless we act quickly and decisively on climate change and biodiversity, the science is unambiguous: there will be no recovery. The consequences would be unprecedented human-induced destruction of life and leaving a disastrous legacy for our future generations. Last season’s largest bushfires on record were a sign of things to come, killing 34 people and an estimated one billion animals, destroying 2,779 homes and burning an area the size of Belgium. In rural communities and in the hearts of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra we were forced to stay inside as breathing outdoor air became hazardous.

The COVID-19 response has demonstrated that when our health and livelihoods are at stake, societies are capable of radical change. It has shown us that swift and decisive, nonpartisan action, based on expert scientific advice is possible. It makes you wonder why the most basic, viable and non-disruptive action on climate change has been so contested and politicised.

On a positive note, compared with other industry sectors such as air travel or manufacturing, decarbonising the built environment is acheivable now. All required strategies and technologies exist today, and most are cost effective. Designing new buildings in a way that at least sets them up to eliminate their carbon emissions is easier and cheaper than having to go back to them in the future and retrofit poorly designed ones. At this critical juncture in time, we, as architects, must choose: apathy or action. This issue of Architect Victoria is about action.

Guest Editor, Spring/Summer

Stefan Preuss

Architect at home: Carey Lyon

Interview by Elizabeth Campbell

Q1 How do you think about home as a concept?

I am a little unusual in that I have never been commissioned to design a house, even one of those classic backyard extensions that most practices start with. So, I have never had to consider, as a designer, a professional conception of home. My experience is all bound up in working on my own home, where the concept is really just creating a place for our lives to be lived – an accumulation of life stages embedded into the fabric of

the place. The original house itself is also a type of accretion made by interventions from many previous owners and changes of habitation. Originally built in the 1920s on the unstable and shonky reclaimed swamps of Elwood, it is slightly misshapen and collapsed, full of imperfections, where a spirit level will find no equilibrium on either the floors or walls. We have come to love those imperfections, as a kind of resistance to a perfect architect’s home, and we find ourselves compelled to keep adding to them. We recently replaced the

timber veneers on the kitchen cupboards and chose a standard Vic Ash veneer, but sought the seconds, the rejects, the unloved and insect ridden, the salon des refuses of the veneer industry, all ugly knots and poor grains. And we recently commissioned, for its slightly sloping floors, some new carpets with a cartographic swamp pattern so that the lost wetlands, Yalukit Wilum Country, are always under our feet or on our minds. That makes us happy to be the keeper of the home’s stories and secrets.

Carey Lyon

Above: Shelley Street House Additions by NMBW Architecture Studio Photo by Peter Bennetts

Q2 How can houses contribute to a wider context and your house in particular?

We lament and despair, even in our own neighbourhood, to see old low front fences with views into warmly lit living rooms, being replaced with solid high fences that keep life out more than they keep it in – where the house on a street is reduced to a black-and-white public and private barricade. The home is surely a place to mediate and live out our personal and community exchanges in architectural terms, in the manner we all navigate these in our daily lives as both private residents and public citizens, or as professionals acting as citizens first and architects second. Our own home is in an oddly public context, a triangular block created by the diagonal alignment of the adjacent Elwood Canal and with a Secondary College across the road and a community park over the canal – so in a good way we have been forced to negotiate this personal and public idea in occupying the house. In fact, over time we have come to regard the secondary side of our place facing the canal as our front, and the primary street address as our side. We have pulled down many of our fences and where we have kept them they have an ambiguous and porous quality. And through decades of guerrilla gardening we have planted indigenous species around the house and along the canal as a small ecological restoration, so that the boundaries of the public space and our private property have become very blurred. Local dogs are always in our garden, oblivious to the idea of a property boundary. Maybe we can learn something from them.

Q3 Talk about the configuration of your house in stages, has it reflected phases of your life?

Our house does have quite a backstory, one of the city’s expansion, speculative real estate and changing demographics. It was first built in the nineteen twenties as a solid brick singlestorey residence. Before the second world war, a light-weight upper level was added to make a two-storey home. After

the war it was converted into a ground and first floor flat, with an external stair to the top flat accessed from the public verge of the canal. We bought the house in this configuration thirty years ago and, against the tide of densification of the inner suburbs, started to convert it back to a single home. We lived in it for a few years where to access the upstairs we went outside into the public space of the canal and up the external stair – a genuine form of private public choreography. Since then we are up to our fourth renovation, matching our needs as we go along. The first was just an internal stair to save us going outside, the second a classic room out the back for expanding family life (three kids). The next was for the teenage and social years and now we on to an empty-nester concept, as a likely final stage. I could think of the house as the opposite of the singular and complete conception; it’s always a work in progress even when we think of it as finished.

Q4 Tell us about the NMBW Architecture Studio work, how did this begin?

We asked NMBW to design the third of these renovations, and it was definitely not a design collaboration. We were very much just the client, and tried to be good ones – write a good brief, say yes to everything wherever possible, never draw on their drawings, and pay the bills on time. In return we got everything you would expect from good architects; they contested and reproposed the brief in unexpected ways, exceeded the aspirations we had for reconfiguring the house, and did it all on budget. We asked them to get involved for a number of reasons, mostly to try out an independent speculation in terms of what might be made of the house’s public position and maybe just to embark on some idea of discovery. We knew from their projects and research that this might be of interest to them, and we knew Nigel and Marika in a way that we could trust them. In fact, we trusted them with our life, figuratively speaking. We were interested in the idea of living, literally, in someone else’s idea –

architects can get a bit obsessed with their own interests. So NMBW are now working on the final empty-nester renovation. Like many family homes with excess bedrooms vacated by adult children we had been contemplating our options for downsizing, say to an apartment. However, we decided we wanted to stay in the neighbourhood, on our specific patch of dirt, in the community we love, and with friends within walking distance. So, we set NMBW a slightly contrary brief, to downsize our own house, and to make every space and room useful to just two of us – essentially same volume, less area. It’s currently a work in progress, with useful voids.

Q5 How do you choose items to fill your house with?

As with the form of the house, the interior is also a bit of an unruly accrual. I hesitate to say eclectic as that tends to wrap it in an aesthetic straightjacket, but it’s pretty much a history of our lives and minds in objects; artwork hung in a salon style so the ideas within each work push up against each other and make a few sparks, an excess of books and CDs, old cricket bats with spilt grips waiting for a team, objects acquired as keepsakes from travel. (Who doubts there is a story in every object?) Furniture acquired for the fascination of the idea from which it was made – like a Raymond Loewy desk or Verner Panton’s VP Globe light pendant, and most recently some chairs made through a collaboration between Indigenous saddle-maker Johnny Nargoodah and designer Trent Jansen – a big dining table for family and friends, and even some Lyons material prototypes here and there. I couldn’t really be sure what they add up to as a concept – a private heterotopia perhaps? So, we keep on accumulating, hoping it amounts to something, even if it is just more unfinished business. Decluttering is never going to happen. Those minimalist houses you see in the real estate supplements in the weekend papers, with their catalogue furniture, they send a cold hard shiver down my spine.

Above: Shelley Street House Additions by NMBW Architecture Studio

Photo by Peter Bennetts

Long House Clare Cousins Architects

Located near Gardiners Creek in Melbourne’s east, Long House is responsive to the area’s natural ecological features. The project’s linear shape provides an economically efficient response that respects the suburb’s local context as a green corridor. This was a prime consideration of the design from the outset for Clare Cousins Architects (CCA). The practice team explain: ‘Defined by an abundance of natural vegetation, and moderately undulating terrain, the natural topography of the site was preserved and echoed in the stepping of the house to minimise disruption to the ground plane.’

With collaborative input from their clients, who work in the energy innovation and construction professions, performative aspects of the house and a reduced carbon footprint were key drivers for architect and client. Describing the brief, CCA explain, ‘Three major considerations were maintained throughout the design: materiality (including sustainably sourced timber

Architect Victoria

A reduced carbon footprint, tight budget and natural amenity, have resulted in a concisely conceived house by Clare Cousins Architects, built to support flexible use well into the future.

Left: Solar orientation to the north with timber awnings providing shade during the summer months.

Photography by Tess Kelly

Words by Emma Adams and Elizabeth Campbell

cladding), a planning strategy that engages with the full depth of the site; and a quantitative response to high-level sustainability performance.’

For instance, operational energy is considerably reduced with fossil-fuel services, such as gas, replaced by an electric heat pump for hydronic and hot water. ‘Making full use of the long roof expanse is a north-facing 12-kilowatt solar panel array, and 10-kilowatt inverter capacity complementing the system.’ Electric car charging facilities further add to the forward-planned sustainable services.

Internally, spaces provide for the dual purposes of work and family life, with a very present connection to the natural landscape. ‘The main arterial circulation mimics the fall of the site, beginning in the shared social space and connecting to a series of functional spaces and bedrooms.’ Two years on, and the generous spaces and effeciency of the house has exceeded the home owners' expectations: ‘The unique yet timeless design and clever spatial planning encompass all that we need for a comfortable and sustainable family home – one that is equally beautiful and functional. Modest spaces work hard and multitask without compromise, giving us the flexibility to work, live and play; together or apart’.

Settling into its surrounds through thoughtful material choices, climate-sensitive services integration, passive systems of solar access and natural ventilation, the project is an ethical and practical example of environmentally responsive architecture. For Clare Cousins Architects, ‘Long House intends on offering a home for growth and longevity’.

Left: Internal spaces function equally well as home and office.

Architecture

Long House

Practice team

Clare Cousins

Brett Wittingslow

Consultant/Construction team

Co-Struct (Engineer)

Eckersley Garden Architecture (Landscape Consultant)

Builder CBD Contracting

Location

Gardiners Creek, Blackburn

Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

Suppliers

Cladding and roofing

Silvertop Ash cladding, Radial Timbers, Zincalume roofing

Windows and doors

Future Windows

Kitchen

Astra Walker tapware

Colonial White granite Baltic Stonemason Professionals

Furnishings

Jardan Nook sofa, Grazia & Co Dita and Iva stools

Services

Sanden electric heat pump, Energy Matters solar array

Below: The 33-metre elongated form maximises northern exposure and streamlined both planning and construction efficiency.

Architect Victoria

Architecture

CLT House FMD Architects

Photography by Dianna Snape

Words by Emma Adams and Elizabeth Campbell

Discussing the brief and in particular, what informed the use of CLT, Design Architect Fiona Dunin explains: ‘The client was particularly interested in exploring the potential of CLT. FMD Architects then drove its use to maximise its potential both internally and externally.’ Material choices overall were influenced by this, ‘our client was very involved in all material selections throughout the building, guided by our recommendations.’ Joinery, doors, walls, floors and stairs are all made from CLT, on display to celebrate its natural qualities. ‘Exposing the structure on the walls and floors demanded absolute precision in the construction system to achieve a finely crafted outcome.’

The use of CLT is a clear standout, made possible by the skilled construction and consultant team. ‘A longstanding relationship between architect and builder built on trust and collaboration, has enabled the use of an emerging sustainable construction system to inform and direct the architectural language into a rigorous design response to its rural landscape.’ Practical construction methods that address some of the challenges posed by climate change were researched by the practice team, including the use of CLT, double-glazing, wall

FMD Architects have used crosslaminated timber (CLT) to minimise steel and create a sustainable addition to an existing dwelling that puts the materiality of the building front and centre.

insulation and new roofing to accommodate solar array, which is very extensive and aims to power the whole house. Sustanability was a major consideration and informed the entire build. Addressing both the function of the exisitng holiday home and creating new spaces for three generations of family to come together, FMD Architects retained the original building as the base structure, refurbishing the kitchen as the main link to the new addition. ‘The project encompasses a reconfiguration of the existing building as the base with a new upper floor addition, which spans the established gardens on the site and replans the home with a new central core.’ Building on what was there, the home benefits from spatial replanning that considers site orientation, shape and size of windows, shading and cross ventilation to maximise passive design. In addition to improved sustainability performance, the design achieves a highly crafted retreat for family to come together.

Right: The pitched roofs to the north integrate an extensive solar array with high-level windows at its peak to capture the changing light throughout the day. Roof peaks also have integrated motorised ventilation slots to release excess heat in summer which work in conjunction with industrial ceiling fans.

CLT House

Practice team

Fiona Dunin, Jayme Collins, Bianca Pearson, Rob Kolak, Alex Peck, Andrew Carija, Owen Castley

Consultant/Construction team

Vistek (Structural Engineer), Rothoblaas Australia (Connection Engineer), Client (Landscape Consultant)

Builder CCB Envico PL

Location

Mornington Peninsula, Bunurong Country

Suppliers

Cladding and roofing

Unlimited Roofing

Cross-laminated timber Xlam Australia, Stora Enso Australia

Furnishings

In Good Company for Lounge Furniture Study chair from Cult Bedlinen supplied by Cultiver

Architects Declare, sustainability performance and the changing profile of architecture Ivan Harbour Avtar Lotay

Interview by Stefan Preuss

Q1 What made Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners become founding signatories of Architects Declare?

Ivan Harbour (IH): In terms of city planning, we have been talking for many years about the sustainability of our planet. This is probably exemplified best by Richard Rogers’ participation in the Urban Task Force in the UK, where we promoted the concept of building within our cities and not expanding, not extending, but actually building on what we have, as a more sustainable way of

developing, not only our infrastructure in terms of its carbon credentials, but also its social credentials.

We think that these things are all interlinked. Like most architects we build for the future and it is, I think, an architect's duty to open the client’s eyes to that very fact. If you simply build for today, then your building becomes redundant in that future scenario. Probably within the last 20 years it has been changing, but prior to that it was very, very difficult, unless you had

clients willing to understand about future investment. Low-energy buildings that had a flexibility to adapt and change over time seemed to be exclusively reserved for people who were building for themselves, rather than building for others. And so, we've had a long history of concerns about trying to push forward the architectural agenda about performance, and in urban design, particularly.

The profile of architecture has changed in the last 30 years, perhaps exemplified in the UK through the Royal

Ivan Harbour, Avtar Lotay

Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize. Presented to architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture in the past year. It is judged against a range of criteria including accessibility, sustainability and environmental performance.

We realised that as a group of past recipients we could have a voice that might be heard above the RIBA, who represent us, but have been singularly unsuccessful in pushing this sort of

agenda. And so, at the instigation of Steve Tompkins, we took the opportunity. The worrying figures in recent years, particularly in terms of the natural environment spurred us into taking the opportunity as a group to speak and every Stirling Prize winner agreed.

Next page:

Above: Barangaroo masterplan by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Macallan Distillery shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2019 and winner RIBA Award 2019 for Scotland

Photo by © Joas Souza

Architect Victoria

Q2 What has changed for you as a practice due to this pledge? How do you work differently now and across your studios?

IH: I think it's an awareness. I was actually very surprised and delighted at the response within the practice to us signing the declaration. It has made the conversation more open within the practice itself. I don't think it has changed anything in the way we do things. We're still asking the same questions, but with renewed vigour, with that statement sitting alongside us.

Q3 Part of your commitment is to embed life-cycle costing, whole-life-carbon modelling and post-occupancy evaluation in your basic scope of work. What does that look like in practice? And, does that work with clients?

IH: In our scope it sits as an additional service. It is one of the areas where there is less knowledge and as the statement says, we will endeavour to do this. So, it is setting a very high bar. It allows us to make the statement and explain and convince clients that it is a worthwhile thing to do, linked with the endusers, tenants, future tenants and their understanding of what they wish to see. That is what is changing more rapidly now. We have the tools to do it, so this is the first step, which is getting the mindset right.

Q4 Avtar, how does your experience of working in Australia differ from working in the UK or other countries?

Avtar Lotay (AL): The experiences are similar.

Barangaroo was the first large-scale project in Australia for me. We had the pleasure of working with Lendlease who had a sophisticated approach to the sustainability agenda set by the New South Wales State Government. What came out of Barangaroo was an approach to a city-making and city-changing project. The approach meant that many sustainability initiatives could be built in because of the scale of the project. If nine or ten different plots had been developed individually, the singular approach to central servicing and waste management, and pedestrianisation of the ground plane would probably never have happened. Sustainability initiatives incorporating and promoting these with the occupiers and how the precinct is managed postoccupation created a community of like mindsets, a very high bar was set.

Architects Declare, as Ivan mentions, is a reinvigoration of our sensibilities into sustainable design and the importance of biodiversity. It is a case of continuing to communicate that to clients who are interested and through explanation can see a potential value proposition over a longer term. Given the current circumstances, and the rate of reaction (compared to the pandemic), how do you align those mindsets sooner rather than later, and is that enough? Can we learn anything from this? Or is it going to be business as usual, which would not be a great outcome for the economic recovery effort.

IH: The biggest challenge, whether it's mass-house or commercial construction, is where there is little motivation for investment beyond financial year end. It's been a really big problem in the

UK particularly with mass-house builders and their lenders. Permitted land is worth a lot of money in a small country; it is too often banked as value and the market then drip-fed to maximise revenue. In this scenario there is little interest in sustainability in any way. All that's required is to satisfy building regulations through self-certification and lobby the government to suppress the tightening of requirements. As planned about 15 years ago, by 2016 all new residential buildings were supposed to be carbon neutral and modelling whole-life-cycle impacts. That was quietly suppressed and then disappeared. Architects Declare will only be successful if it gets to government and convinces it to stick to, or accelerate, the tightening of the building regulations. The minimum regulatory requirement has to effectively deliver something which is carbon neutral and eventually move to regenerative.

There is an opportunity particularly now, because we've had a little glimpse as to how life could probably be better. And there is an opportunity to take a bold step and set those rules because that could help create an economy which is based around the idea of being regenerative and fixing the planet.

Q5 Thank you for being so frank. What is your take on the situation at the moment, do you think we could see a different, say, climate of listening to the science, and acting accordingly?

AL: The dynamic and politics of denial or lack of understanding, even when there is significant scientific evidence, I suspect will continue until a precipice is reached and action becomes an absolute. Looking forward, if our education system was to be much broader, where we raised our current and future generations to be much more aware of and sensitive to the realities of climate change, the importance of not destroying the environment which sustains us and all that which exists within it, and the consequences if you do. You fundamentally have a collective awareness with a passionate belief in an sustainable environmental future and are willing to make the necessary behavioural changes. Once you have got that voice, it influences and demands change. If not, you will always get that dichotomy of those who understand, believe and those who do not. So, how do we all become more cognisant of the fragility of our environment and in turn ourselves? You cannot trash the environment without consequences. We have all the facts and figures, which shows a very dire story in terms of the state of our planet and until that is recognised at all levels, action is limited. Listening to the debate, both back in the UK and here, there is a sense of frustration, which says this is not going anywhere. How can we change that?

Q6 Do you think that has changed now?

AL: I think the two tragic events here, the bushfires followed immediately by the pandemic have shifted the focus in terms of what needs immediate attention. Should we reflect on both events, and try and put them into the perspective of the bigger picture of our environment? The consequences of one suggests an insight into the other. Here in Australia we have an

amazing, diverse landscape and a unique biodiversity; to see parts of it destroyed and wrecked is tragic. Also, Australia is blessed with so much sunshine, one can begin to put one and one together and get a good outcome if there is a will to do so – mindsets and vested interests would need to change, which I believe will happen hopefully sooner rather than later.

Q7 How do you take clients on the journey, including the ones who are not interested, if you have any?

IH: I think all clients are interested. You certainly need the process of explanation, the process of particularly telling clients that you are doing this for the future. Then the question is whether it pays in the short term, which I think can only be resolved by law.

For example, in the UK we have this bizarre situation where if you build new it's exempt from VAT (value added tax) but if you refurbish, you have to pay VAT, which is 20 per cent, that means your costs are 20 per cent higher. I can understand that if you're doing the sort of upgrade, which you don't really need to do like upgrading your kitchen in a house, maybe you should be paying a value added tax. But it doesn't make sense certainly at the scale, where we should be trying to repurpose buildings to minimise the impact of development. The framework needs to be enough to support us in this event to be neutral or regenerative. The whole economy really should be organised so that it benefits you to be regenerative. It's of course a simple thing to say, but a

Above: Tree House

Render by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

complicated thing to do, because it's so against our consumptive mode. But it's possible. And I think, we're pretty inventive as human beings, and there's a lot of money to be made in being creative in your design process in all fields.

You've got so much sun in Australia, you should be exporting solar energy, not coal. It's a no-brainer. Digging up the ground and selling it to other people is not a sustainable model for any country. Architects Declare is just one very small part of that, but in the context of the pandemic and the bushfires, maybe it is the right moment.

AL: With regard to irreversible climate change and its impact on biodiversity, once it's gone, it's gone. You can't bring it back. Uncontrolled consumptive growth which is not based on some form of circular economy is difficult to make sustainable.

Q8 At the heart of Architects Declare is the dual crisis of biodiversity and climate change. How do you respond to these at different scales? On your projects, say from buildings to cities?

IH: Let’s start from an urban planning perspective. Architects don’t see urban planning in the same way as urban planners. We very much think about it as architecture, the physicality of it, more from the end-product view, of what it feels like to be in the city. At that level, clearly it's about strategies, ensuring that urban planning isn't led by traffic engineers but reflects this understanding, and a mixed-mode way of getting around the city.

At the complete opposite end of the spectrum I think we now get points in BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) for having beehives on buildings. I think there's something rather lovely about the notion that you're creating a building with nooks and crannies to help support nature. And then, it's everything in between, such as heat islands and green roofs, which are now well established. You don't really do flat roofs anymore in the UK that aren't green. That's a good news story at one level but natural corridors need a lot more work, understanding that nature needs to be able to get about – for traffic engineers to turn their mind to natural corridors rather than asphalt corridors.

Q9 What do you think are the opportunities for architects who seriously embed climate and biodiversity in their practices, or the risks if they don't?

IH: The risk if you don't is that people won't be seeking your services because it will become very important for all clients that designs are carbon neutral or regenerative. So, if you don't have that knowledge in-house, you risk falling behind. I personally think we're in a very difficult moment in architecture. Architecture is really about making space and place for people to enjoy and love. So, for me, the opportunity that architecture can evolve aesthetically in response to this huge challenge and move away from a decorative game is a real opportunity. If this all moves forward, as we would love it to, then maybe it is an important moment in history as I guess the advent of

Modernism was a reaction to wars that culminated the old age. That would be a very exciting and rather wonderful moment. My belief is that architecture needs to be frugal, straightforward and economical in its use of all things and I'm very disturbed when I see architecture, which although it might be graphically very powerful, is clearly none of those things.

AL: I agree and would add that a broad spectrum of knowledge is required. You have to be broad to make informed decisions and the broader architects can be, the more valuable an asset they will become as part of a wider and better decision-making process.

IH: My sincere hope is Building Information Modelling (BIM), which not many of us fully understand, will allow us to better understand and analyse building performance into the future. Architects, even though they're quite resistant to using BIM at the moment, understand what's going on in that threedimensional world and I do think that fully understanding it will enable us to have more control over the quality and environmental standards achievable for buildings in the future.

Q10 In the current health crisis, we've seen unprecedented change to the way we live and work within an incredibly short time frame. Which lessons and opportunities do you see for addressing our challenges from that?

IH: Clearly a health challenge is much more immediate. It's not a long, drawn-out process. The positives are that it's showing that we can do things. It's like an open-book assessment. You can see all the pitfalls and problems. Just seeing that democratic process all out in the open, trying to solve a real problem gives us a lot of hope that we could put climate change in place of COVID-19 on the forefront and we could really do good things. We could change the way we think about our world.

AL: Absolutely! And it's cleared the air, literally, cleared the air in Delhi, it's cleared the waters in the canals of Venice, which you think I'll never live to see that. So, while it was unfortunate that it took the pandemic to create the context, it shows that you can make a difference if you shift and do things differently.

That is a wonderful note to finish on. Thank you for your time

Architects know that the built environment matters. But they might not realise just how important it is in mitigating climate change.

In Victoria, the state is committed – via the Climate Change Act of 2017 – to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. It’s a goal broadly in line with the Paris Agreement to keep warming under 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible. Those

Climate works

Words by Michael Li

thresholds are important. At 1.5 degrees we might retain some tropical reefs. At 2 degrees none are expected to survive. Other projected impacts of 2 degrees of warming include more intense heatwaves, droughts and higher sea levels that may make low-lying coastal areas uninhabitable.

We are a long way from meeting our targets. But, recent research by ClimateWorks Australia suggests that the 1.5-degree limit might still be achievable, so long as we take action immediately.

Keeping global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees is about more than reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. It requires the international community to limit the total amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere over time. If we delay action, we could still exceed our carbon budget to keep under 2 degrees of warming, even if we achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

This is the transformation decade for climate action. Action to roll out mature and demonstrated solutions –

such as energy-efficient buildings and renewable energy – cannot wait until 2030 or 2050. The modelling in our Decarbonisation Futures report maps substantial reductions across every sector of the economy. The report models three potential pathways for Australia’s emissions: two that would bring emissions in line with 2 degrees of warming, and a third in line with 1.5 degrees.

The energy used to operate buildings contributes about a quarter of our national emissions and so – not surprisingly – buildings play an important role in the projected solutions. Most of the solutions required to achieve zero emissions in the building sector are already mature and commercially competitive or have been demonstrated at scale. Other sectors like long-haul transport, agriculture and heavy industry need much more focus on research, development and demonstration before they can reduce emissions. Decarbonising the built environment today using known, cost-effective strategies will reduce the burden of having to fully decarbonise these more challenging sectors in the future.

To reach an outcome compatible with 2 degrees, under our modelled pathways the emissions from the building sector reduce by 63 to 64 per cent by 2030. For 1.5 degrees, the figure stands at 73 per cent. Our modelling shows that achieving these reductions requires both retrofitting existing structures and delivering new buildings with higher energy performance than today’s minimum standards. For example, the model incorporates new housing that is built to at least 7 Star NatHERS (compared with the current 6 Star standard in Victoria), with this rating increasing over time.

So how might we get there? For a start, rooftop solarpanel installations doubled compared to today’s levels under our modelled pathways. But solar panels are not sufficient on their own. Our decarbonisation models also factor in significant gains in energy efficiency, which is where architects have a major role to play. Improvements in efficiency mean that individual buildings can achieve net zero with a smaller solar-panel system, or export solar energy back to the grid.

In the models, the energy performance of housing improves by at least 44 to 48 per cent by 2030 compared to today, while commercial buildings achieve a result of 16 to 25 per cent. For housing, the models show energy performance of new builds improving by 51 to 56 per cent (compared to housing built today) while energy performance of existing buildings improves by 41 to 44 per cent.

Our Decarbonisation Futures modelling shows that the required outcomes can be achieved through technologies that are already commercially available and demonstrated at scale, delivering ongoing benefits including lower energy bills and more comfortable buildings. The list of solutions is long but includes more insulation and better draught sealing than today’s minimum standards, swapping inefficient lighting out with LED lighting, improving the efficiency and control of HVAC systems and appliances (for example through better commissioning and optimisation) along with heat pumps and induction cooking powered by renewable energy instead of carbon-emitting gas

appliances. Such strategies and technologies are shovel-ready, they just need to be applied and deployed.

The biggest contributor to emissions from buildings is the electricity and gas needed for heating and cooling. The heating and cooling energy performance of a given building rests – first and foremost – on passive design elements: its orientation, site position, the shape and size of windows and shading. By incorporating sensible passive design measures, architects can often reduce energy use at negligible additional build cost.

For retrofits and renovations, architects are encouraged to use the opportunity to upgrade the existing building fabric to at least the current minimum standards, as structures built before 2005 are unlikely to meet these and may fall well short of this basic measure.

Architects can significantly influence the performance of new buildings as well as major additions and renovations. This starts with objectives established in the return brief and design concept, carried through design into construction, commissioning, operation – and ideally – monitoring and evaluation. Practically this includes the provision of leadership to sub-consultants to ensure that the design and systems are appropriate and well-integrated. When sitting down with clients, architects can provide an understanding of life-cycle costs and the benefits of energy performance, including their effect on the value of the asset. Architects can also work with clients to navigate finance opportunities such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation supported Bank Australia Clean Energy Home Loan. Finance solutions could either unlock reduced-interest repayments on existing mortgages and home loans or reduce the upfront cost of energy-efficiency measures via access to lowinterest loans that spread this cost out over time. By prioritising zero-emissions outcomes in their work, the architectural profession can contribute immensely right now in Victoria’s transition to net zero.

Michael Li is a Senior Project Manager at ClimateWorks Australia.

Aligning values

Words by Billie Giles-Corti

The design of our cities, neighbourhoods and housing has been at the forefront of public discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic. The strengths and vulnerabilities of our cities have been highlighted with conjecture about what this all means for the future of cities.

With exercise the only permissible recreational activity during lockdown, green open-space has been a clear winner in public discourse, with many discovering, using (possibly for the first-time) and appreciating their local public open spaces. The major criticism of public open space during this time, appears to be the inadequate width of shared paths and conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists. Indeed, a much welcomed 21st century cycling boom appears to have emerged as a result of this pandemic. With the dual benefit of allowable exercise and physically-distanced mobility, people have dusted off old bicycles and bicycle shops have reported unprecedented sales.1 This resurgence has prompted more road space to be allocated for cycling and to enable physical distancing, with pop-up cycle paths being created in cities across the globe to facilitate safe cycling. 2

As restrictions on mobility ease and life begins to normalise, the challenges of maintaining physical distancing on public transport is self-evident and walking and cycling have become the ‘new black’, offering a healthy and sustainable form of mobility for those living within walkable and cyclable distances from their destinations.3 These options are not always available due to the inequitable distribution of amenities, employment and safe-cycling infrastructure across our cities. The impacts on traffic congestion and air quality would be disastrous if private motor vehicle travel replaced public transport trips. While traffic and public transport congestion could be managed partly by workplaces permitting employees to continue to work from home at least

on some days of the week, and staggering work start and finishing times, flaws in the way we have planned our low-density sprawling cities and the location of employment are self-evident.

During the pandemic some have lauded low-density suburban development as the future ideal. However, COVID-19 highlights the urgent need to fast-track more resilient sustainable development and delivery of 20-minute neighbourhoods in a 30-minute city that facilitates local living. In 20-minute neighbourhoods, residents would have access to amenities required for daily living within a 10-minute walk each way from home, and in a 30-minute city, employment would also be accessible by active transport modes – including public transport – within 30 minutes. This would reduce automobile dependence and greenhouse gas emissions by reducing distances travelled, commute times and traffic congestion and facilitating healthier sustainable travel modes (walking, cycling, public transport). This development model would reduce resource consumption, create more affordable living, increase access to employment, protect agricultural land, and promote good health, leading to a healthier and environmentally sustainable future.4 In other words, there would be widespread co-benefits for individual, community and environmental health.

The cornerstone of achieving 20-minute neighbourhoods in a 30-minute city, is higher-density development. In the context of outer suburban development, the densities required to achieve a 20-minute neighbourhood are very modest by international standards: only around 25 dwellings

Jewell Station Development by Neometro Brunswick, Woi Wurrung Country

Photo by Derek Swalwell

per hectare.5 Nevertheless, to optimise outcomes and achieve sustainable and biodiversity-sensitive design, we need to reconceive outer suburban development, moving away from the monoculture of large single-level housing fully occupying most of the increasingly smaller lots. Design and architecture must play a key role in reimagining suburban housing development suitable to the Australian context.

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the COVID-19 debate has been ill-informed commentary implicating density itself in the spread of the coronavirus. Emerging evidence appears to confirm that – irrespective of density – cities that have successfully contained the virus have been those that have taken early and stringent preventive action. Indeed, one study found that counter-intuitively that higher-population density is negatively associated with COVID-19 mortality, mainly because very high density Asian cities have led the way in containing the virus because of their experience in population infection control.6 Hence, in the context of a pandemic, density itself is not the problem: failure to take rapid action has been the problem. At this critical point in history, it is vital we remain focused on achieving healthy and more sustainable development.7 Just over half of the world’s rapidly growing population now live in cities, rising to 75 per cent by 2050. Australia’s population may double by 2050, with growth mostly occurring in cities. Compact cities with higher-density development are being championed as a sustainable means of managing this growth.

Apartment living in Australia is relatively new, and unquestionably the COVID-19 lockdown has highlighted the vulnerabilities of the way we are currently building higherdensity housing – including the proliferation of tiny apartments without balconies that rely on residents using the public realm for all their socialising and relaxation – have proved inadequate during lockdown, particularly as they have had to be repurposed as places to work and learn. Apartment complexes occupied by families with inadequate private and semi-private space have seen parents cooped-up working and studying with their children, impacting the health and wellbeing of both parents and children. Access and egress of apartments using small elevators have challenged their efficiency for mobilising residents when required to physically distance, particularly in large high-rise developments and those occupied by older less mobile residents unable to use stairs (equally problematic in a fire emergency). The well-established need for adequate ventilation and light, and lastly, in cities with unaffordable housing, the risk of infection for residents living in overcrowded apartments and sharing bedrooms.

Photo by Derek Swalwell

The success of higher-density development depends on the design of the building and who is going to live there. This and the geographic location is key to creating a resilient form of housing in the future. So, what does the evidence tell us about how we can maximise the health benefits and minimise the harms of higher-density housing? 8 To maximise physical and mental health benefits, it is important to locate higher-density housing near employment opportunities, schools, shops and services (such as libraries), and public transport to other activity centres, as well as in leafy neighbourhoods with quality public open space and other recreational opportunities.

The location and design of higher-density housing on heavy-traffic roadways and near high-volume traffic intersections exposes residents to traffic pollution and affects respiratory health and chronic disease patterns (including, depression, cardiovascular disease and cancer). Air pollution also appears to increase the risk of transmission of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Hence, it should be a priority to locate higherdensity housing away from roads carrying heavy traffic and major intersections. For buildings located on roads carrying heavy traffic, ensure balconies do not overlook the road and buildings are sited to maximise cross-ventilation.

Living in higher-density housing can be socially isolating by limiting social networks and access to social support. Hence, there is a need for semi-private space within apartment complexes to facilitate selective interactions between residents, as well as age-appropriate play areas. Living on higher-floor levels can also be socially isolating and associated with poor health and social outcomes, particularly for lower socioeconomic groups, children and stay-at-home women with young children. Hence, there is a need for higher-density housing to be humanscale. Up to seven-storey buildings are preferable, particularly for low-income families with fewer housing choices.

The success of high-density housing will depend on who lives there, the people the housing is designed for and efforts to reduce disorder and crime through environmental design. It is important that families are catered for. There is a need for larger apartments in each development to accommodate families and for family housing to be co-located to facilitate play and a community of children.

In times of uncertainty, it is easy to implicate density in the transmission of disease. However, crowded living – rather than density itself - is the major factor affecting disease transmission. This is particularly concerning in cities with unaffordable housing where people are forced to live in overcrowded housing and share bedrooms. But there is no evidence to suggest that density per se, is the problem. Hence, we need leadership to avoid the celebration of urban sprawl as our means of tackling infectious disease transmission and managing a once-in-a-century lockdown. Rather, our focus needs to be on how to produce high-quality, healthy and sustainable outcomes for current and future generations.

Clearly, architects have a key role to play in reimagining a better future – one that maximises the health and

environmental benefits of higher-density housing and minimises any harms. Unquestionably COVID-19 is an acute societal and economic challenge that must be managed and has highlighted vulnerabilities in our cities that must be avoided in the future. But arguably, mitigating climate change is the biggest chronic challenge we are facing in society that we must work together to address. How can we use healthy resilient and sustainable architecture and community design to deliver a city of villages that facilitates local living, maximises sustainable mobility, reduces traffic congestion and air pollution, protects biodiversity, reduces heat island effects and enables working from home and employment to be distributed across cities to reduce the need to travel? If we could achieve this, it would have far reaching health, environmental and planetary impacts. There is a great opportunity to use evidence and good design, to work together to achieve a better healthier and more sustainable outcome for future generations.

Billie Giles-Corti is a Professor at RMIT University and Director of its Urban Futures Enabling Capability Platform.

NOTES

1 E Mark D (2020), ‘Australia is facing a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ as cycling booms, advocates say’, ABC News, accessed 18 May, 2020, abc.net.au/ news/2020-05-17/coronavirusbringsonce-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-forcycling/12247870

2 Laker L (2020), ‘World cities turn their streets over to walkers and cyclists’, The Guardian, accessed 21 May 2020, theguardian.com/world/2020/ apr/11/world-cities-turn-their-streetsoverto-walkers-and-cyclists

3 Jacks T (2020), ‘Car parks out, footpaths and cycling lanes in as city prepares for post-COVID commuters’, the Age, accessed 15 May 2020, theage. com.au/national/victoria/car-parksoutfootpaths-and-cycling-lanes-in-as-cityprepares-for-post-covid-commuters20200507-p54 4 Victoria State Government (2019), 20-Minute Neighbourhoods. Creating a more liveable Melbourne. Melbourne, Department of Environment Land Water and Planning.

5 Boulange, C. et al. (2017), "Examining associations between urban design attributes and transport mode choices for walking, cycling, public transport and private motor vehicle trips."

6 Injera, Y. et al (2020), Accounting for Global COID-19 Diffusion Patterns, January-April 2020. NBER Working Paper Series. Cambridge, MA, National Bureau of Economic Research.

7 United Nations (2017), "Report of the Secretary-General, "Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals"." E/2016/75. accessed 07/05/2017, from sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ sdg11.

8 Giles-Corti, B. et al. (2012), Increasing density in Australia: Maximising the benefits and minimising the harm. Melbourne, National Heart Foundation of Australia.

Breathe Architecture: Jeremy McLeod Madeline

Sewall

Interview by Stefan Preuss

Q1 You are a carbon neutral practice. Why is that important to you?

Jeremy McLeod (JM): For a long time, we thought the answer to sustainability was doing everything simultaneously. When you're trying to deal with embodied carbon and your emissions related to building operations, biodiversity and community, it looks too hard for people and they become less and less engaged in the idea of sustainability. It was largely passed off from architects to sustainability consultants, particularly on bigger, more

complex projects. Going carbon neutral was firstly about walking the walk, but also about helping our clients see how simple and affordable it was.

Q2 Which objectives do you establish with your clients at the beginning of a project? And how do you ensure they're protected? JM: For a successful project, you need a great architect, a great builder, and importantly, a great client. So, when we engage with our clients initially, while they're interviewing us, we're also

interviewing them. If we get the sense that there's not going to be an alignment of values, such as caring about the planet,

Right: Edgars Creek House by Breathe Architecture.

Photo by Tom Ross

Edgars Creek House by Breathe Architecture.

Photo by Tom Ross

or your fellow humans, the project is doomed for failure. We ensure these values initially align, or we don't do the project.

For the first ten years of our practice, we talked a lot to our clients about why we should be transitioning away from gas and fossil fuels, but because it's 2020 – nearly 50 years after climate change was first identified – we feel it's not a conversation we need to have anymore. We just design allelectric buildings and we don't have the conversation about gas until a client might ask where's the gas enclosure? At which point we tell them there isn't one. We think it's like asking, where's the oil storage tank or where does the woodpile go?

We establish the objectives in the very initial client meetings. Before we're even engaged, we talk about what's important to us as a practice and how we will make the building as sustainable as possible, as simply as possible, as elegantly as possible and as cost effectively as possible. Our idea is sustainability through reductionism, which, like good passive design, doesn't cost more. In our offer of services, we clearly set out who we are and what we do. Once the client agrees to that and engages us to deliver a project which meets their briefing requirements and our values requirements, we push as hard as we can within the budget and program allowances.

Q3 How would you take a sceptical client on the journey?

JM: Developers are an interesting, more sceptical client group because a lot of their decision making is about derisking the project to get bank funding. For this you need bank valuations, which are based on historic precedents. So, we show them precedents of where something that we propose has been successfully done before and what the comparable market sales have been.

Then there are also cost gaps that drive the developer’s decisions, such as a gas-fired hot water heating unit compared to a high efficiency, electric packaged heat pump. Here, we explore finance pathways such as environmental upgrade agreements with the Sustainable Australia Fund, which is paid back by the tenant through the rates over time. So, it doesn't actually cost any more for the developer to be fossil-fuel free.

We introduce the developers to GreenPower suppliers and explain to them how they can build a requirement for 100 per cent renewables or GreenPower into the Owners Corp rules, tenancy agreements, or even a covenant. We can then demonstrate that they can deliver a carbon-neutral building (in operations) without adding cost to the development of the project.

Madeline Sewall: We also work really hard to establish a sense of camaraderie with every project team, a sense of shared ambition. We celebrate every milestone and every accomplishment because the work isn't business as usual and we ask people to work harder than they usually do. And the more we do, the more people want to work hard and push the boundaries with us.

Q4 Can you walk us through your approach to designing a netzero carbon building?

JM: The single most important thing when designing a net-zero carbon building, is not plumbing gas into the building. We then design the building to be efficient. We use simple passive solar design techniques, we shade the north, west and eastern glass, we get the wall-to-window ratio right, depending on orientation. We put as much solar as possible on the roof and we talk early with our electrical consultants about maximum electrical demand, and load shifting at different times of the day. We focus on right-sizing, asking ourselves, what do people actually need? We set ourselves minimum energy efficiency targets at Breathe, for example, 7.5 Stars (NatHERS) for residential buildings. This is easy to do in a Melbourne climate, through thermally broken, double-glazed windows and doors, good building insulation and right-size openings. We naturally ventilate the building where we can through double-hung, sliding or tilt and turn windows. We only do awning windows if the fire engineer won’t allow anything else. But after all of that, the key to ensuring a net-zero emissions building is to make sure it's powered with 100 per cent GreenPower.

Q5 How do you think you will be able to operationalise life-cycle costing and embodied carbon analysis?

JM: Firstly, I think it's important for us to have a broad understanding of the implications of our design choices on the embodied carbon and the longevity of our buildings.

We've built our own materials handbook that looks at everything that you put into a building, where it’s sourced and why we should specify it. For example, how local is it? How close is it to its natural form? How much energy or carbon has gone into making that product and what does the end of life cycle look like? We hand it over to our sustainability engineer to undertake an audit on the embodied carbon, and then we work with our client to offset these emissions. Obviously, a price on carbon would incentivise suppliers to make carbon neutral materials and would force developers to pay down their carbon deficit.

Q6 Does a net-zero carbon building cost more to build?

JM: No. We design through the lens of sustainability through reductionism. Our mantra is Build Less, Give More. We strive to take redundant materials out of the project to peel back layers of redundancy, to expose the raw structure and harness the benefits of its thermal mass. Projects like the Commons and Nightingale 1 took big things out of the project: basement car park, second bathrooms (en suites), individual laundries, air conditioning, plasterboard ceilings, ceramic tiles and electroplating to tapware and door furniture. Instead, we invested in high-performance insulation and double-glazed windows, good passive solar design, cross ventilation to every apartment, ceiling fans, shared rooftop laundry and landscaped rooftop. The net result was a simpler, cheaper, better building. The sort of sustainability we're delivering is low tech, and it's more of an editing process than about complex, expensive technology.

Right — Above and Below: Edgars Creek House by Breathe Architecture.

Photo by Tom Ross Nightingale 1 by Breathe Architecture.

Photo by Peter Clarke

Edgars Creek House Suppliers

Practice team

Jeremy McLeod, Madeline Sewall, Sarah Mealy, Fairley Batch

Consultant/Construction team

Keith Long & Associates (Engineer), Grimbos Building Surveyor (Building Surveyor), Nick Bishop ESD (ESD consultant), Coffey (Land surveyor Geotechnical Erosion Management), Geof Hosie (Land Surveyors)

Builder Never Stop Group

Location

North Coburg, Victoria

Woi Wurrung Country

Flooring

Urban Salvage reclaimed Tasmanian oak

Eco Outdoor Endicott Fillietti stone

Australian grey ironbark and spotted gum decking

Cladding and external walls

Earth Structures Peninsula natural sandstone and rammed earth wall

Australian grey ironbark and spotted gum battens

Doors and windows

BINQ

Kitchen

Briggs timber veneer joinery

Black mild steel shelves and detailing

Recycled messmate bench-tops

Fisher & Paykel appliances

Custom fabrication

Copper tapware

Concrete bathtub

Lighting

Ambiance Lighting surface-mounted downlights, outdoor spike

LedLux outdoor wall lighting

Warehouse Greenhouse by Breathe Architecture.

Photo by Tom Ross

Suppliers Warehouse Greenhouse

Practice team

Jeremy McLeod, Madeline Sewall, Daniel McKenna, Fairley Batch, Zac Evangelisti

Consultant/Construction team

Keith Long & Associates (Structural Engineer), Nick Bishop ESD (ESD Consultant), Metro Building Surveying (Building Surveyor), Webster Survey Group (Land Surveyor), Efficiency Matrix (Blower Door Testing)

Builder Never Stop Group

Location

Brunswick, Victoria

Woi Wurrung Country

Flooring

Urban Salvage recycled grey ironbark timber decking

Recycled hardwood timber stair treads from the existing roof purlins on the site

E0 yellow tongue

Doors and windows

BINQ high-performance timber double-glazed doors and tilt-andturn windows

Lockwood door hardware

Internal walls

Australian FSC-certified strapped plywood cladding

Salvaged masonry

Fielders external zincalume wall cladding

Autex acoustic wall lining in entryway

Laros ERV System

Pro-Clima air-tightness membranes

Roof

Steel trusses (reclaimed from existing site)

Kitchen

Carter Holt Harvey Victorian plantation formply joinery

Stainless steel bench-top

Mild steel splashback

Reclaimed timber bench-top (reclaimed from existing site)

Consolidated Brass raw brass tapware

Bathroom

Strapped FC sheet with zero-VOC epoxy coating instead of ceramic tiles

Consolidated Brass raw brass tapware

Nightingale 1

Practice team

Peter Steele and Breathe Architecture

Consultant/Construction team

Openwork/Oculus (Landscape Architect), Breathe Architecture (Development Manager) with advisory services by Hip V. Hype, Nick Bishop ESD (ESD Consultant) with Hip V. Hype Sustainability, Hansen Partnership (Planning Consultant), Metro Building Surveying (Building Surveyor), Form Structures (Structural & Civil Engineer), Lucid Consulting (Services Engineer), Thomas Nicolas (Fire Engineer), Arup (Acoustic Consultant), Morris Access Consulting (Access Consultant), Leigh Design (Waste Consultant), Websters & Peter Rickard (Land Surveyor), Compass Environmental (Environmental Audit), Landscape contractors and irrigation designers (Landspace)

Builder

Project Group

Location

Brunswick, Victoria

Woi Wurrung Country

Suppliers

Flooring

Bamstone Victorian bluestone pavers

Urban Salvage recycled timber

Loba – Zero VOC hard wax floor finishes

Doors and windows

BINQ double-glazed thermally broken

Lockwood raw brass door furniture

Internal walls and furnishings

Autex recycled PET acoustic wall panelling Camira Fabrics 100% recycled PET upholstery and curtains

Exposed concrete structure

Roof

Bluescope Steel coolmax ultra Colorbond

Lighting

Ambience light fittings

Kitchen

Concrete bench tops

Formply joinery

Fisher & Paykel appliances

Bathroom

Coroma high efficiency dual-flush toilets

Brodware raw brass tapware

Services

Solar 18kW PV array

BREC electrical

Automatic Heating packaged heat pump for combined domestic hot water and hydronic heating

Re-use of rainwater for irrigation, laundry and shared amenities

Hydronic heating (some reclaimed from the Collingwood Arts

Precinct)

Universal Fans – ceiling sweep fans

Photo by Peter Clarke

‘If we truly live into the fact that we are life, that we are nature, and as such are bound by kinship and interdependence to the community of life that human and planetary health depend upon, we will come to regard the creation of a globally regenerative civilization expressed in exquisite locally adapted diversity as the creative challenge of our times’ (Daniel Christian Wahl).

Recent bushfires, floods and the re-bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef vividly showed us what climate change

Our place in the world

Words by Caroline Pidcock

looks like here and now in Australia and the biodiversity emergencies it creates. We are now navigating our way through a pandemic that saw the world stop while we stayed at home. If that was not enough, the trauma of racism and blindness of white privilege has been brought to the attention of the world in ways we can no longer ignore.

The upheaval and impact these multi-issue environmental and social calamities are causing have been devastating for many and are yet to be

fully understood. Their connection and interdependence are also becoming obvious.

It is certainly time to think about what we are doing and what the future holds. There are many who do not believe we should – or can – go back to the old normal. We need to create a new, fairer, safer, healthier and regenerative normal that will enable us and future generations to survive, and hopefully thrive.

As an architect on the path to becoming a regenerative co-creator, I

have given a lot of thought to what this might be. What are the skills I have, and how can I direct them in beneficial ways? And how might this apply to our profession?

I would like to suggest that architects can do a whole lot more than engaging with the profession of designing buildings and places with a focus on the aesthetic, furnishings and decoration, supervision of construction and adaptive reuse of existing buildings, and our larger role is calling for us to step up right now.

Before we imagine what this might be, it is useful to consider what our particular talents and skills are. In this place, at this time, architects can appraise and manage many different information sources and interaction, and creatively realise their potential for the project they are working on. As architect James Fitzpatrick notes, this is a little like a movie director who brings together many different players and parts and enables them to be their best for the benefit of the whole.

Architects are also three-dimensional thinkers and visualisers, able to bring their creative thinking to many in easily understood, seductive ways. The stories we bring to life, can encourage people to come along on the journey, and continue in their own way long after we leave.

So, to our place in the world at the moment. As one of the founders and spokespeople for Australian Architects Declare, the commitment our signatories have signed up for gives a real indication of the framework we need to creatively explore to create the future we need. As professionals involved in work that is responsible for approximately 38 per cent of global carbon emissions, the need to substantially reduce both operational and embodied energy in our buildings is clear. Australian Architects Declare and the Australian Institute of Architects Climate Action and Sustainability Taskforce are looking at the best tools and guidance to help with this right now.

Additionally, underlying these commitments is the need to base our work on regenerative design principles. So, what does this mean?

We have a lot to learn about this from the Traditional Custodians of our land, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have cared for Country for tens of thousands of years. We are not separate from nature, we are part of it. When we care for Country, she cares for us.

Architects’ creative, three-dimensional systems of thinking fit really well with regenerative design. We need to bring this to projects in new and different ways. It calls us to create diverse,

collaborative teams who can expand our collective thinking right from the start about what projects can be, and how they can develop for the mutual benefit of all involved, in the widest sense. It requires us to deeply understand the systems and their many layers that we and our projects exist and operate within, so that we can understand and work with their patterns and energies.

Such thinking and approaches should be found both within our studios and in the broader context (such as client groups and government), where projects are initiated and defined.

So how might we think about our work in this light? We seek the minimal intervention required to achieve the optimal benefit – think about radical sufficiency in the first place. In all instances we focus on potential realisation, rather than a narrow problem-solving approach. We help appoint diverse teams that can realise a project’s potential at the very early stages, so we can collectively contribute our unique skills right from the start. Our designs work with, support and are inspired by natural systems, and connect people and nature in meaningful and multisensory ways. Our project purposes are developed as the place and systems they are located within are deeply understood, so that all parts (built and natural) will co-evolve and be mutually beneficial. We value, respect and include resources and materials in ways that enable their ongoing contribution or return to nature.

In a time of crisis, change is not optional, it is required, and a lot needs to be done now to shift our world into a different, sustainable direction. Architects should be playing a significant part in bringing the best of these ideas to life. If not now –when? If not us – who?

Caroline Pidcock is one of the founders of Australian Architects Declare.

Architect Victoria

Decarbonising buildings

Words by Kate Nason

If the bushfires taught us anything, it is the diminishing time frame we have to curb climate change. Yet we cannot be paralyzed with the fear that rapid transition is impossible. This year has shown us how enormously capable we are at adapting to previously unimaginable change in a matter of weeks. This is presenting us with an opportunity to recalibrate, and fundamentally, rethink our approach to the built environment. Shifting our focus from why to how is more critical than ever.

Architects play a vital role as we have direct access to sculpt both the embodied and operational carbon of buildings before they leave the drawing board. The challenge extends further though – to ensure buildings once built, also enhance the lives of those who occupy them and offer resilience in the face of a rapidly changing climate.

Vancouver, New York City and Brussels are exemplary cities that have demonstrated true leadership in decarbonising their built environment in a short time-frame. Architects offer some valuable insight into how they are tackling this challenge within their own practices. Sebastian Moreno-Vacca, Director of A2M Architects in Brussels, has shaped his practice around designing buildings which address energy as a fundamental design parameter. He sees energy as the fourth dimension of design –its dynamic nature able to impact the experience of a space – whether that be temperature, light, moisture, materials or occupants themselves. He states that the language of energy needs to be integrated into the vocabulary of architecture and that the tools that enable us to predict, analyse and optimise the flows of energy are a ‘pen’ which enable a new type of drawing to unfold.

Since the early 2000s, A2M have adopted the Passive House Standard, which sets out criteria and verification measures to optimise indoor environmental quality with the use of minimal operational energy as the baseline performance for all their projects. Sebastian maintains that this is the first and most critical step in the journey to creating regenerative buildings. His team were among a handful of architects who recognised this and sparked the beginning of a revolution in building performance across Brussels, advocating for the Passive House Standard to be integrated into the building code.

With mounting political and industry pressure around climate protection and building quality, support from the regional government was gained to launch the Exemplary Buildings Program (BatEx) in 2007. This was effectively a regional competition which incentivised developers to commit to energy-efficient construction as part of a regional strategy to curb emissions. Eligibility was informed by the Passive House Standard and although not mandatory by the program’s conclusion in 2013, 243 buildings had met this goal and received funding.1

Research on low-carbon and zero-emission building design across North America and Europe, published prior to both the devastating bushfires and the pandemic, reinforce the urgency for us to deliver resilient, low-carbon buildings

Right: Meininger Hotel by A2M Architecture. Photo by Stijn Bollaert

Decarbonising buildings

This transformed market demand supply chains, construction practices and architectural design methodologies for the better, generating 1200 new jobs which simultaneously boosted local economies and improved the quality of life of those in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the Brussels capital region. Off the back of this success, the regional building code adopted this performance standard in 2015, forming what is now known as the Brussels Passive Standard. This took Brussels from a city with some of the poorest performing buildings in Europe, to an international leader in a matter of years.

Cities such as Vancouver and New York City looked to Brussels for inspiration, sending delegations of policy makers and leading architects to gather insights and transferable learnings from them. Brussels regional government and architects such as A2M have since provided support in the form of workshops, shared resources and collaborative advisory services to the local governments and industry organisations, such the American Institute of Architects, across both Canada and the US.

With the approval of the Climate Mobilisation Act, New York City is aiming for an emissions reduction of 80 per cent by 2050 across both its new and existing building stock. To get the ball rolling, the New York State Energy Research and Development (NYSERDA) launched a Building of Excellence Competition. As per the BatEx program, it is utilising the Passive House Standard as the benchmark for ‘very low to zero carbon emitting multifamily buildings’. 2 In return for up to $US 1 milion in funding, all winners must agree to transparently share information on design and construction processes, budget and performance data.

The competition is supported by the City of New York Council and the Building Energy Exchange (BEex) – one node in an independent network of international centres of excellence which seeks to connect the private and public sectors and form cross-disciplinary support for the innovators in the design and construction industries. It is important to note, that architects have often been at the core of their establishment.

In collaboration with the Zero Energy Building Energy Exchange (ZEBx), the City of Vancouver has taken a slightly different approach, incentivising early adopters to embrace netzero carbon buildings without direct financial incentive. The municipality is targeting a reduction in operational and embodied carbon emissions in buildings by 80 and 40 per cent respectively by 2030. In order to do this, they have implemented a Zero Energy Building Plan, providing a pathway to meet the

Passive House Standard among other initiatives. In return for non-monetary rewards such as additional floor space, height and setback relaxations; they offer accelerated permit time-frames, removing red tape and consult with the local industry about overcoming foreseen barriers. Chris Higgins, Green Building planner for the City of Vancouver, notes that this has been well received with 20 per cent of ‘all new developments now targeting the Passive House Standard, a major transformation to a green economy is taking place.’3

Despite fears that such an uplift in building performance will cripple the construction industry, quite the opposite has happened. A strong community has formed where architects and builders exchange learning freely with each other (with council being part of the conversation too) working together to overcome challenges as a team rather than from opposite sides of the table. Removing the competitive secrecy between firms has opened up new opportunities to progress faster and more efficiently.4 The unanimous moto for the architectural community in Vancouver can be put down to the following: ‘We must simply grow the pie so everyone’s piece gets bigger.’

There are great initiatives being put forward across Victoria already, with several municipalities now aiming to introduce Net-Zero Carbon Development amendments into their planning schemes by 2021.5 This Green Recovery is extremely promising; however, declaring an ambitious target like this is only the first hurdle. We will also need to formulate a clear roadmap for the industry to get there. As insights from Vancouver, New York City and Brussels have revealed, there are multiple strategies that could be adopted in Victoria to help us carve our own pathway. Utilising a proven building performance benchmark, quality management and verification mechanism (such as the Passive House Standard), introducing reward and recognition schemes (such as the BatEX program) and forming close collaborations between government and industry (as seen through BEex and ZEBx) we can establish the support, training and knowledge dissemination required to build the industry’s collective capacity to deliver a carbon neutral, resilient future.

Left

Les balcons (2018) by A2M Architects

Photo by Stijn Bollaert

Kate Nason is a certified Passive House Designer (PHI), Green Star Accredited Professional (GBCA) and Board Director at the Australian Passive House Association. A recipient of the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship in 2018, and with a background as an architect with the Victorian registration board, Kate has worked across multiple low-energy buildings including Certified Passive House projects such as the Monash Gillies Hall and several single residential homes utilising low-carbon prefabricated construction systems. Kate now works at Atelier Ten across a range of project types.

NOTES

1 EU funded PassiveHouse Regions with renewable Energies project; Passreg.eu

2 NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence Copetition, nyserda.ny.gov

3 Renewable City Action Plan City of Vacouver, vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/renewable-city. aspx and theage.com.au/national/victoria/net-zero-buildings-yarra-council-releases-bold-postcovid-development-plan

4 Shaun St Amore, Zero Emissions Buildings Learning Centre and High Performance Building Lab, BCIT

5 Built to Perform: An Industry Led Pathway to a Zero Carbon Ready Building Code, Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) and ClimateWorks Australia, asbec.asn.au/ research-items/built-perform/

Above:

Linné plantes by A2M Architects.

Photo by Stijn Bollaert

On communication

Words by Rachael Bernstone

This year has prompted us to look for a new direction that reduces our impact on the planet. Perhaps we’ll collectively commit to reducing carbon emissions by 45 per cent as outlined in the Paris Agreement.1 Doing so will require deep structural change. Global emissions must fall by between 3 and 7 per cent each year now through to 2030 to limit climate change well below 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius respectively, according to the United Nations Gap report. 2

For architects who want to facilitate structural and individual change – but largely rely on clients and regulators to set the financial and environmental parameters of their projects – there is plenty of apprehension about these goals.

However, there is also hope, because today –more than ever before – the Australian public is ready to engage with notions of climate change mitigation and resilience in relation to the built environment. In April, Ipsos – a market research company –found that 57 per cent of Australians want climate change initiatives to be prioritised in post-COVID-19 economic recovery activities.3

Unfortunately, the federal government’s Home Builder stimulus package that was announced in early June failed to prioritise energy efficiency upgrades, or link funding to improved performance, although Chief Scientist Alan Finkel added his voice to the call for greater investment for energy efficiency measures in buildings in mid-June.4 So, what does a low-carbon future look like, and how can architects become agents of change to deliver it? And what are the best ways to engage clients and the broader public around these complex issues?

Step one: Embed low-carbon commitments into your business plan

According to research by CB Bhattacharya, Professor of Sustainability and Ethics at the University of Pittsburgh, companies that set out to reduce their carbon footprint or waste achieve better results when they make sustainability an integral part of their core

purpose, and communicate that commitment to the entire staff. An analysis of ‘environmental, social and governance performance data on over 3000 companies during a ten-year period,’ found that: ‘companies that said they have an “overarching vision” that combines financial goals with social and environmental ones tended to perform better on a measure of their impact on the environment. They also tended to perform better financially as well.’5

In January, Architects Assist instigated a campaign for practices to go carbon neutral in 2020 and published a guide to do so in June. The next step involves bringing clients into the journey.

Step two: Understand your audiences

In terms of communications, clients and the public are not homogenous one-size-fits-all groups, so tailored messages are required. These will vary according to existing levels of knowledge, familiarity with the terminology, and degrees of engagement with the issue.

The Global Warming Six Americas study provides a useful framework: it identified six main categories around climate change beliefs and approaches, as follows: the ALARMED are fully convinced of the reality and seriousness of climate change and are already taking individual, consumer, and political action to address it; the CONCERNED are also convinced that global warming is happening and a serious problem, but have not yet engaged with the issue personally; three other Americas – the CAUTIOUS, the DISENGAGED, and the DOUBTFUL – represent different stages of understanding and acceptance of the problem, and none are actively involved; and the final group – the DISMISSIVE are very sure it is not happening and are actively involved as opponents of a national effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.6

In a recent publication, How to talk about Climate Change, Rebecca Huntley suggests that

Australians can be categorised similarly, and that understanding the range of views and responses to climate change is a useful tool in making a difference.

Step three: Decide on key messages and frame them to suit

Several key psychological theories can be applied to frame messaging for different audiences and enable you to strike the right tone. It’s important to understand how and where your target audiences seek and acquire new knowledge and information. For example, CRC research by six universities and the CSIRO on low-carbon living found that the media plays an important role in shaping home renovation practices and approaches to energy efficiency.

‘While there is great potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by improving energy efficiency through changes to building layout, structures, fixtures and appliances as Australian homes are being renovated, this potential is not currently being realised. It appears that top-down approaches by government to encourage low carbon renovations are relatively ineffective in changing renovators’ practices.’7

Two new programs aim to address television audiences and promote sustainability and good design in the residential sector. Renovate or Rebuild is targeted at the renovation market and will broadcast on commercial television later this year. Home Run targets the volume builder market and aspires to drive demand for net-zero energy housing in Australia. Both will deliberately eschew design-focussed terms such as energy efficiency, passive solar, cross ventilation and thermal mass. Rather, they focus on three main considerations that resonate strongly with consumers: comfort, health and efficiency.

Architects should consider re-framing the way they present climate change and design messages, by choosing angles, words and phrases that certain target audiences will easily connect and engage with. It’s also important to strike the right tone to be informative and entertaining, rather than hectoring and shaming.

Step four: Support key messages with evidence

Data and evidence-based research is currently reframing the way we talk about climate change. British architect and researcher Professor Flora Samuel has called for architects to further quantify the value of architecture and good design in her book Why Architects Matter. Professor Samuel also recently spearheaded the development of a new guidance template, the Social Value Toolkit for Architecture, published by the Royal Institute of British Architects, which provides a set of useful postoccupation questions for architects to chart the social value of their projects.8

Closer to home, the Office of the Victorian Government Architect released The Case for Good Design, an overview of research on the impact of design in healthcare, education,

workplaces, housing, justice, urban design and transport projects. The performance metrics of good design – especially around climate change – should be further researched, quantified and promoted. For example, research conducted by Sustainability Victoria in 2014 found that some consumers experienced ‘renovation regret’ brought on by higher energy bills combined with uncomfortable summer and winter temperatures, despite having invested heavily in their homes. ‘A lot of people underestimate the importance of energy saving when renovating,’ said Smarter Renovations project lead, Sarah Fiess.9 Renovating ‘presents one of the best opportunities to improve comfort, save money and add value to a home.’10 Architects should clearly explain and promote the benefits of good design, especially to address and counter possible misleading claims from some volume builders about energy ratings.

Step five: Contribute to creating the new pathway

In the UK, several networks such as the London Energy Transformation Initiative and Architects Climate Action Network are developing practical guidelines and transformative roadmaps towards a low-carbon future.

Locally, the Australian Institute of Architects established the Climate Action and Sustainability Taskforce in January to coordinate its response. Australian Architects Declare is coordinating actions and keen to encourage more input from the profession to develop and share resources, plans, research, best practice, future visions and exemplar projects.

Rachael Bernstone is a journalist and communications adviser to architects. She holds a Master of Architecture (History and Theory) from the University of New South Wales and completed a Churchill Fellowship on Sustainable and Affordable Housing in 2003. She provides pro-bono communications assistance to Australian Architects Declare.

NOTES

1 ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-globalwarming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/

2 unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019

3 ipsos.com/en-au/two-thirds-citizens-around-world-agree-climate-change-seriouscrisis-covid19-ipsos-survey

4 theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/21/chief-scientist-joins-calls-foraustralia-to-dramatically-boost-energy-effeciency

5 theconversation.com/winning-worker-hearts-and-minds-is-key-to-companiesachieving-theirgreen-goals

6 climatecommunication.yale.edu/about/projects/global-warmings-six-americas/

7 Media & Home Renovations: Hashtag Sustainability? Home Renovators’ Media World, CRC for Low Carbon Living, lowcarbonlivingcrc.com.au

8 architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/resources-landing-page/social-valuetoolkit-forarchitecture

9 aiff.net.au/news/sustainability-victoria-to-debut-its-smarter-renovations-programat-buildexpo-2014/

10 theconversation.com/spruiking-the-stars-some-home-builders-are-misleadingconsumersabout-energy-ratings-136402

If we look at Greater Melbourne as one interconnected system, with inputs and outputs, it's expensive to run, it’s high maintenance, and it’s leaving a mess behind for future custodians.

If this was a machine, it would be due for a complete overhaul, not just a tune-up. However, when we take a look inside this machine, we see the true complexity of

Melbourne 2030

the problem. It’s not not the technology or the costs, it’s the living organisms inside the machine. There is no united approach to upgrade and then continuously tune the city. Instead, we continue to do small patchwork repairs simply to keep it going. The challenge we have ahead, however, requires coming together for something bigger than ourselves, rather than simply fixing shortterm problems. There is an opportunity to give back to the next generation, and every generation after that.

Over the past two years we have independently undertaken an unprecedented study to understand the transformation of an entire city from a consumer to a producer. First, understanding the resources required to operate Greater Melbourne currently, all 31 councils combined. Then, investigating the technology, capital cost, spatial requirements and profitability of transforming Greater Melbourne into a self-sufficient city. A city powered solely by renewable energy, with an unlimited

Words by Ross Harding

normalise.it features projects to transform Melbourne into a selfsufficient city by 2030 from Clare Cousins Architects, Edition Office, Fender Katsalidis, Fieldwork, Foolscap Studio, Grimshaw x Greenshoot Consulting x Greenaway Architects, Ha, Hassell, John Wardle Architects, Kennedy Nolan, NMBW Architecture Studio, Openwork, Six Degrees Architects and WOWOWA Architecture

water supply and where the concept of waste to landfill no longer exists. An autonomous machine. This article is a brief summary of what we found.

What does this machine require each year to keep it running? Every year, Greater Melbourne burns enough brown coal to fill the Eureka Tower 100 times, enough oil to fill it 40 times, and enough natural gas to fill it 30 times. It produces enough waste to fill the Eureka Tower 50 times, and consumes enough water to fill it 1000 times, every year.

How are other cities approaching this? After an extensive international review, ten key initiatives were identified that, if implemented, can transform Greater Melbourne into a self-sufficient city. Here are a few highlights of what we found. Shenzhen purchased 16,000 electric buses and 20,000 electric taxis, converting their entire public transport network to electric while halving their fuel bills. California found that by using the batteries of the 1.5 million electric vehicles mandated by 2025 as grid energy storage they could save $13–15 billion in station energy storage. Amsterdam is phasing out natural gas entirely by 2050. Los Angeles and New York City have ambitious plans to regulate energy efficiency in existing buildings. Thirty-two per cent of residences in Adelaide now have solar photovoltaic systems installed. By 2025, South Australia is expected to be producing more renewable energy on an annual basis than it consumes. Germany will decommission all of its 84 coal-fired power plants by 2038. Copenhagen will be entirely carbon neutral by 2025. Eighty-seven per cent of Israel’s wastewater is recycled; 40 per cent of the drinking water supply in Singapore comes from treated water. Perth refills its drinking water aquifer with treated wastewater; 70 per cent of London’s water is supplied by treated water. In China, India, Denmark and Germany hundreds of sophisticated organic-waste-to-energy anaerobic digestor systems generating electricity and heat from renewable biogas are in operation, some of which have been in operation for over 20 years. Costa Rica announced plans to completely eliminate single-use plastics by 2021. The EU has voted to ban the ten worst singleuse plastics by 2021. The Netherlands will become a circular economy by 2050, their entire economy will function without requiring new mined resources. All residential construction from 2020 in California is to be Zero Net Energy (ZNE), and all commercial construction from 2030. Vancouver and Toronto have implemented a Zero Emissions Building Plan with a step-down approach to all new buildings becoming net zero by 2030.

And Melbourne? Melbourne is a luxurious, but expensive and inefficient machine. Melbourne is

the second most livable city in the world, in the top twenty wealthiest cities and just outside the top one per cent in terms of polluters. Melbourne can lead this transition. Melbourne must lead this transition. So, how do we do it? How do we upgrade our machine? We electrify the entire transport system and all our buildings. We drastically improve the efficiency of all our buildings. We introduce energy storage and power our city with renewables. We treat and reuse our water, creating an endless supply. We use organic waste as a fuel to generate energy and fertiliser. We end the concept of landfill. These first nine steps are about transforming our existing structures. Lastly, a mandatory net-zero code for all new buildings ensuring they give back resources to the city and future generations.

This is normal. Each initiative is currently happening in various cities around the world. But combined, all of them, in one location, that’s new. Welcome to a new normal.

Greater Melbourne has an opportunity to unlock the most significant infrastructure project in its history; a $100 billion transformation to become the world’s first autonomous city. The transition can be implemented by 2030 using only profitable initiatives, creating 80,000 jobs annually in construction, 40,000 ongoing jobs and paying for itself in under ten years. The best part, we don’t have to wait for the government to unlock this, the private sector will lead the transformation and pay for the vast majority of it (approximately 99 per cent). Architecture has a huge role to play in this transformation. Yes, new buildings are important, but the key to the transformation is in our existing structures.

Obviously, this city is not just a machine. It’s a living breathing organism filled with humans, and culture is the glue that binds us. To achieve this transition, we need to integrate the physical infrastructure that makes our city work with the cultural infrastructure that enables us all to thrive. Architects can lead here.

Ross Harding is a sustainability professional with a background in engineering and finance. He provides sustainability advice on architectural projects from residential housing to city-wide masterplans.

Deco House Mihaly Slocombe

Photography by Tatjana Plitt

Words by Nikita Bhopti

Through their design of Deco House, Mihaly Slocombe consolidate a newly married couple’s pragmatic brief into a home that ‘responds to context, history, environment and material’. Focused strongly on increasing the home’s amenity to accommodate a growing family, Deco House adopts present-day patterns of living, planning shared and private spaces that are both functional and flexible – all within a uniquely expressive form.

Sitting within a series of six 1930s Art Deco cottages, Deco House’s existing fabric was laced with patterned brick, ornate ceilings and an asymmetric floorplan, which are characteristic features of Art Deco homes across Melbourne’s suburbs. With an aim to ‘honour the heritage of the house and the history embodied within its materials’, Mihaly Slocombe celebrate the period detailing and spatial qualities of the original cottage retaining the front portion of the existing home. The twostorey extension is sited to the rear and is separated from the existing house by a central double-height entry space – creating a deliberate ‘deference to the original series of cottages’.

The ground floor of the extension houses the key living spaces – kitchen, living room, dining area, and access to the garage. A series of double-glazed doors and louvred windows form a fully-glazed eastern facade opening onto an outdoor living area. By adopting a translucent pergola that extends into the garden, the internal spaces are thermally protected from direct sun, while allowing natural light to filter into the home. Above, a series of perforated screens to the two first-floor bedrooms and bathroom regulate light and thermal heat gain, while also screening sightlines to the neighbouring cottages.

The addition’s expressive form is based on a series of bullnose roofs solving a collection of site-based challenges, such as maximum building envelopes and council setback requirements, through a gesture that nods to the Art Deco era of the original home. This same gesture is internalised by adopting bullnose ceilings across the key living areas. The project team note that the intention here is to ‘concentrate and scatter the light across a lustrous material palette’.

Preserving the historic fabric of the original Art Deco building, Mihaly Slocombe have created a home filled with light. Providing room for a family to grow.

Left: The heritage of the house is celebrated in the front rooms which retain their period detailing

Curved plywood panels line the ceilings, giving the ground floor its sense of warmth and softness, with polished concrete floors achieving a high thermal mass. When selecting the internal and external materials used in Deco House, Mihaly Slocombe sought to specify locally sourced and low-carbon materials where possible. The addition’s walls are lined with high performance insulation and all windows and doors are doubleglazed and timber-framed, allowing Deco House to achieve a high thermal performance. Active systems are integrated across the home, such as low-energy heat pumps, and a green switch, which kills non-essential circuits when the house is vacant. Deco House supports the current lifestyles of its occupants, while having flexible spaces that can meet their future needs. It is a sustainable home that honours its existing fabric, while adding to it sensibly and generously, resulting in a forever home that can be grown into.

Above — Left and Right: Low-carbon materials, passive solar design and heat pump are some of the sustainable inclusions

Deco House Suppliers

Practice team

Warwick Mihaly, Erica Slocombe, Eliza Tieman, Job Gabriels

Consultant/Construction team

Grimbos Building Surveyors (Building Surveyor)

Blue Lotus Energy Rating (ESD Consultant)

Geoffrey Moyle (Quantity Surveyor)

Adams Consulting Engineers (Structural Engineer)

Builder

Basis Builders

Location

Kew, Victoria

Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

Flooring

Nullarbor Timber blackbutt timber floors, Don Currie Carpets

Cladding and roofing

Austral Plywoods hoop pine plywood ceilings

Lysaght corrugated metal roofs

Locker Group perforated metal screens

Kitchen/Bathroom

Astra Walker, Blanco tapware, Artedomus, Classic Ceramics tiles Miele appliances

Furnishings

Great Dane Furniture

Lighting

Laser Lighting, Masson for Light, ECC Furniture and Lighting

Architect Victoria

Garden House BKK Architects

Photography by Derek Swalwell

Words by Nikita Bhopti

Garden House is an enduring home which successfully creates a spatial model that is specific to the couple occupying it (and their two cats). It ensures long-term livability while embracing robust materials and smart gestures to work with the existing site features. To showcase the clients' collection of books and Australian ceramics, a bookshelf running the length of the key living space ‘creates the opportunity for these loved objects to both enrich and be a backdrop for everyday life’.

The Edwardian cottage, which fronts onto an urban inner city street, houses what the architects refer to as closed spaces ‘for guests, movies, music, and working from home.’ This part of the house preserves the idea of the more traditional cottage, maintaining decorative features and a sense of formality. In contrast, the spaces in the new addition have a sense of

Below:

Robina

BKK Architects celebrate the arrangement of volumes in harmony with the garden, inviting the landscape to creep in.

and Japanese maple trees were retained from the original backyard, with views from the key living areas outward celebrating these existing features. Deep window ledges, large tilt-windows and integrated bench seats along the addition’s facade set up several moments of occupation between the inside and out. With areas of garden between internal volumes, Garden House presents unique pockets of privacy.

Architect Victoria

retreat, disconnecting from the urban condition of the street and instead, opening up to a sprawling garden.

The BKK addition takes the volumes of the Edwardian cottage, and repeats them toward the rear through deconstructing the spaces down the length of the site to improve orientation and connectivity, creating more contemporary multiuse spaces. When looking toward the roof from the garden, the cut lines from this unravelling process are almost evident in the profile of the roof form, with fascias highlighted black in contrast to the timber-clad eaves and the exposed timber structure. The full-height glazed northern wall, further exaggerates the roof lines both internally and externally. Comprised of doubleglazed french doors, louvred panels, and tilt windows, this highly operable facade promotes passive cooling across a series of rooms and enables natural ventilation.

Spanning east-west, deep eaves protect the home from the summer heat while inviting in the low winter sun. The rooms to the existing part of the house were upgraded with insulation and double glazing, lifting the thermal performance of the dwelling as a whole and its overall energy rating. Additional processes, such as blower testing for air-tightness, were carried out to ensure the house met a high standard of thermal performance and passive design. Garden House is fitted with solar panels, heat pumps and provisions to make it zeroemissions ready, keeping pathways open for its occupants to implement more sustainability solutions in the future.

Above — Left and Right:

Material selections for the addition were informed by their thermal mass properties, and durability over time. The robust material palette of concrete, brick and charred timber cladding, combined with exposed timber beams and timber lining, both internally and externally, give the home its elemental qualities. With no applied coating used to the external materials, Garden House has an enduring skin that is low maintenance.

Garden House Suppliers

Practice team

BKK Architects

Consultant/Construction team

Argall (Structural Engineer)

Mud Office (Landscape)

Builder Moon Building Group

Location

North Fitzroy, Victoria

Woi Wurrung Country

Charred timber cladding

Eco-Timber Group

Windows and doors

Valley Windows

Kitchen

George Fethers veneer

Earp Brothers tiles

Arte Domus stone benchtop

Bathrooms

Arte Domus tiles, Signorino tiles, Archier basin, Earp Bros tiles, Astra Walker tapware, Caroma bath

Services

Zero-emissions ready with all-electric appliances

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Eastop Architects: Liam Eastop

Interview by Elizabeth Campbell

With a commendation in the 2020 Victorian Architecture Awards, the jury commended this residential alteration and addition for 'the sensitive utilisation of natural light and materials'. For Eastop Architects, creating a platform to test ideas and be creative has been at the forefront of their architecture practice.

Q1 Can we start with a little bit of background and why you chose to start your own studio in Melbourne?

I grew up on the Mornington Peninsula and moved to Melbourne to study communication design at Monash University before transferring to architecture. While studying, I started at Wood Marsh Architecture where I had exposure to a broad range of projects across residential, commercial and infrastructure and developed strong relationships with my peers, who I am

still close with today. Following five years at Wood Marsh, I worked at Studio Goss and Pandolfini Architects, before establishing my own practice in 2017.

I have always wanted to run my own business and I started my practice because I was looking for the freedom to control the direction of my work and have a platform to test ideas and be creative. On the side, I taught at Monash and Melbourne for a number of years. I value the balance that teaching provides, it’s important to me to stay connected to

Above: Elm Tree Place, Carlton Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country Photo by Rory Gardiner

exploring architecture without the usual constraints that come with practicing architecture commercially.

Q2 How did you procure your first project?

Rose Street was our first built project and was run as a side project while working at Pandolfini Architects. The clients are close friends and I’m extremely grateful for their trust and commission. For the studio, Rose Street was an opportunity to learn, solve a brief within a budget, explore light, detailing and absorb the building process. In a way, this project kick-started the studio through the relationship with the contractor, following that project, Prolifica forwarded two new clients and allowed the studio to become a full-time focus.

Q3 What design principles do you live and work by?

A key theme in all of our work is developing a strong sense of spatial experience, through the consideration of contrasting environments, spatial sequences and relationship to site. We are particularly interested in the role that form, scale, materiality, light and connection to the natural environment plays in creating these experiences.

Elm Tree Place is an example of this approach to design, where a monochromatic palette, textured materials, mirrored and transparent elements and natural light form a sequence of layered and filtered spaces, enhancing the sense of scale and providing a dimensional experience, uncompromised by the limitations of the subdivided site.

Q4 What is the process of a project from concept to completion? In all your projects – architecture, furniture, and sketches.

I usually have a compositional concept for a project early on, sometimes before I have even visited the site or had a formal briefing. I spend a lot of time exploring speculative spaces where I can experiment without constraints and these often form the starting points for project concepts. We focus on a single concept for each project and prefer to present handgenerated sketch diagrams in initial presentations to engage our clients in our process.

Q5 How big is your team? How do you see the studio growing?

We are a small and fluctuating team, currently three, including myself. While we are establishing, we bring in support as required. We have a business manager and branding designer who have been instrumental in helping me establish the studio. Lauren has been with the practice since it became my full-time focus and we have been a tight team over the last few years. I’d like to grow the business sustainably, I’m not in a rush to have a huge number of staff. My preference is to focus on quality work that we enjoy doing, not quantity of projects, and to ensure that we can maintain a culture that continues to nurture a healthy work-life balance.

Q6 There is a clear sense of contrast and contrasting experiences (light/dark, black/white, inside/outside, straight/curved, smooth/rough) in your published work (and concept sketches), can you explain why and how this is explored?

We explore the interplay and intersection of elements in our work to create thresholds, moments that shift visual or spatial perception and create a dialogue between architecture and self. To achieve an overwhelming sense of openness and lightness, a considered transition from a contrasting darker, enclosed space intensifies this experience. The same rhythm in contrasting materiality amplifies the impact of the qualities of each material.

Q7 What is your dream project?

To explore the theme of a heightened sensory experience through space making, without the usual pragmatic constraints. Ideally this project would be a commercial or public work, to engage a broader audience.

Q8 Who are your mentors?

I call on different mentors and peers within and outside of the architecture community for their different perspectives. Randall Marsh from Wood Marsh has been helpful in encouraging me to set a strong vision for my practice and I have a few friends, who also run their own practices, who I talk to frequently about day-to-day things such as projects and business processes.

Q9 Is there any architecture you're still trying to really nail? A small detail that hasn't turned out quite right?

We have been working on a series of site extractions and models exploring the relationship between site, casting and structure. We are hoping to test some of these ideas at a larger scale, with an aim of creating an enhanced sense of site-specific permanence. Also, as an establishing business and design studio, we are really focused on fine tuning our administration and project processes, to create more time for research, exploration and learning.

‘The use of reflective and transparent material, fluted glass, textured glass brick, reflective surfaces, explore the movement of light and sense of depth within the tight-walled contstraints of the site. Balanced with a secondary darker material palette.’

Right and Previous Page: Elm Tree Place, Carlton Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

Photos by Rory Gardiner

Park Life, Williamstown North Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

Park Life responds to the principles of the Garden City, integrating home, garden and streetscape, continuing the vision laid out by the Housing Commission in the 1940s. Across a vast nature strip, the artist’s studio peers out. The timber wall and garden-nestled curves create a protected garden courtyard with stone paving and pale green bagged walls. A timber awning presses into the side of the house, creating dappled shade.

Inside, the living areas are loosely defined by tapering walls and pinched thresholds, expanding to accommodate homely comforts. Study, gallery and dining tie the old house to the new.

Project 2 Ha

Harry and Viv's House, Abbotsford Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

The centrepiece of the interior is quite literally nothing at all. The front corridor opens onto a double-height void, allowing skylights to draw natural light into the living room below.

The sense of openness continues to the rear courtyard. In collaboration with the landscape architect, and informed by borrowed space, the house achieves a harmonious flow of colour materiality and botanical elements. Kitchen with discreet integration of appliances, pantry and storage spaces, dining and backyard coalesce as one outdoor room.

Sustainable design is embedded throughout the old and new house. Key features are east and westfacing external sun-shading, well-sealed, double-glazed windows, concrete slab for thermal mass, hydronic heating with electric heat pump, solar array along the entire north-facing roof, ceiling fans, and a small footprint.

82 Slice

Slice

Photographer Tom Ross

Photographer Dan Hocking

Project 1 Architecture Architecture

Project 3 Noxon Architecture

Montague Street House, South Melbourne

Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

Montague Street House is a renovation and extension of a single-fronted, Edwardian-era brick cottage in South Melbourne. The project establishes a harmonious balance of elements including, heritage fabric, open shared space with secluded area and an inward focus with distant views. These qualities along with the dramatic external form arise from the client brief for a flexible contemporary urban home.

The design retains the front portion of the house, while a double-storey addition has been stitched to the roofscape to the rear, pairing generous open plan with private secluded nooks. A new small roof terrace welcomes the morning sun and offers magical glimpses of the tree canopy and historic roofscapes. An abundance of natural light and connection to the greenery of the gardens offers a serene and timeless backdrop to the lifestyle of a growing family.

Project 4 Branch Studio Architects

Arts Epicentre, Braybrook

Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung Country

The Arts Epicentre is a new building, amalgamating Caroline Chisholm Catholic College's creative programs. The ground level has been designed to cater for drama and dance-based disciplines, while the upper level is primarily used for music and studio arts. Derived from a combination of an emblem on the existing building, four ply-clad light-catchers hang within the internal performance space.

The internal arrangement of spaces is curated around the idea of audience and performance mirroring one another. With stair circulation placed around the perimetre of a central atrium space. The upper level of the building is consolidated by a singular banded, slotted aluminium sun-screen. This was created for means of controlling afternoon summer sun, but also celebrating and reflecting the building's interior programs to the college and wider community.

Photographer Shannon McGrath

Photographer Peter Clarke

Architect Victoria

‘Conditions for innovation: a disaster has destroyed the box so you have to think outside it. There is a unique chemistry of circumstance that supports new thinking and ways of doing things. Embrace it.’ (EQ Recovery Learning – New Zealand)

Drawing on the past, and appreciating the unique challenges of our current circumstance, how can government leverage its response and recovery efforts towards innovating and creating an enduring legacy for the Victorian community?

Conditions for innovation

Words by Sophie Patitsas

How might design support this effort? If architecture is the canary in the coalmine, perhaps it is also the discipline that can immediately step up to imagine a different future and articulate how we might get there.1

Bushfire recovery

In understanding what needs to happen in bushfire recovery, written submissions and evidence provided to the Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements by built environment

experts provided valuable evidence and advice on planning and building design in fire-prone areas, demonstrating the value of professional knowledge and expertise. This level of policy engagement and advocacy highlights the critical role of design in a national conversation on improving resilience and adaptation of the built environment to changing climatic conditions. 2

In our own engagement with the work of Bushfire Recovery Victoria, our focus has been to raise awareness

through demonstration. Telling the stories of those who have designed and built new homes in sensitive locations helps others faced with similar challenges envisage what’s possible. Principles of resilience, sustainability, affordability, quality design and amenity are embedded and showcased in these narratives. Demonstrating various design solutions that achieve regulatory standards, arms affected residents and local communities with tools that will help improve the quality of their own new homes as they rebuild.

Future homes

Our Future Homes Design Competition seeks fresh approaches to the way we live in our suburbs by imagining model apartment building designs that are attractive, exemplary additions to their place. With an agenda of implementation and demonstration, a fast-track approval process will be tied to the winning designs. The brief asks for replicability, cost-effectiveness and buildability. A demonstration project associated with the competition offers an exciting opportunity to bring these new types of home to life. The potential multiplier effect is significant with opportunity for wider application to address social and affordable housing supply needs and for construction innovation tied to a pipeline of work.

The context of COVID-19 adds a layer of complexity and functionality to the notion of home as it increasingly has become a place of confinement and an alternative workplace for large sectors of the workforce. The spotlight on social housing following Victoria’s lockdown further highlighted the challenge with an underserviced sector that would benefit from economic stimulus prioritising both better precinct and building design.

Getting to good design

The fundamental and enduring qualities of good design for housing and indeed, across all building typologies are amplified, rather than diminished, in the context of crisis. These enduring design qualities underpin all advocacy and advice undertaken by our office.3 This includes: universal design as a foundation design principle; equity, safety and inclusion; sustainable and healthy living; connection to local community and active transport; a sense of address, belonging and ownership; connection to nature and outlook; access to both private and public open space, fresh air and natural light; and, amenity, comfort, flexibility, resilience and adaptability.

The pressure to act quickly and normalise life in response to a crisis is understandable.

Perhaps the enduring qualities of good design can help architects question this impulse. How can we translate and articulate what these problems mean for our built environment without compromising our way of life? How can we innovate? This is the great challenge and opportunity of our time to design better.

‘So how are we going to live with this thing? Are we going to accept pre-Covid “normal”, only much diminished, without the relationships that sustain us? Are we going to allow our kids to have all their learning mediated by technology? … Instead of … trying to solve problems in a way that diminishes our quality of life … Why do we not have twice as many teachers with half the size classrooms and figure out a way to do outdoor education?’4

Sophie Patitsas is Principal Adviser, Urban Design and Architecture, Office of the Victorian Government Architect. NOTES 1 Geoff Hanmer, The Conversation, 9 July 2020 2 Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements, Australian Institute of Architects, 9 July 2020

3 The Case for Good Design, Office of the Victorian Government Architect, 2019

4 Naomi Klein: ‘We must not return to the pre-Covid status quo, only worse’, Katherine Viner, The Guardian, 13 July 2020

Executive summary

Words by Leanne Hardwicke

The Australian Institute of Architects works to ensure high-quality outcomes in our built environment helping to shape resilient, liveable and high-functioning cities, regional towns and rural communities.

We have welcomed the opportunity to provide evidence to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, established in response to the extreme bushfire season of 2019–20 which resulted in loss of life, property and wildlife and widespread environmental destruction.

Our evidence has highlighted the critical role of built environment professionals in improving the resilience and adaptation of Australian society to changing climatic conditions. At the same time, we have sought to provide evidence and recommendations that will actively mitigate the impact of natural disasters. The Institute accepts the science on climate change and the need for a proactive response. Globally, building and construction accounts for nearly 40 per cent of energy-related carbon emissions while also having a significant impact on our natural habitats and biodiversity.

Climate change is the key factor contributing to the disruption of human societies through extreme weather events and natural disasters, and as the most recent bushfire season has reminded us, Australia is not immune to this new reality. It is clear that these impacts will escalate in the future and urgent action is required to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the severity of climate change and to proactively plan for a more hostile climate.

The physical destruction accompanying disasters, including the 2019–20 bushfires, typically creates an urgency to rebuild damaged communities and help survivors get their lives back on track. There are many inspiring examples of how architects, planners and other built environment professionals have contributed to rebuilding.

Delivered to the Australian government on 28 October 2020 the Royal Commission Final Report underscores that there is no time to waste, both in preparing for the next fire season and ensuring we build back better from the last one.

Net-zero carbon housing

Words by Graham Hunt

After many years of inaction in Australia about energy-efficient housing, things are starting to change. A new increase in stringency is now on the horizon.

In 2019, the former COAG Energy Council agreed to the Trajectory for Low Energy Buildings, which sets a trajectory towards zero-energy (and zero-carbon) ready buildings. It included increases to the energy efficiency provisions in the National Construction Code (NCC) for residential buildings from 2022 and an expansion of the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) to offer nationally accredited Whole of Home tools, which will assess the overall energy performance of the building.

The Building Ministers’ Forum directed the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) to update provisions informed by the Trajectory residential buildings in NCC 2022. The ABCB sought public comment on an Energy Efficiency Scoping Study to establish the scope of the NCC 2022 energy efficiency project. The scope includes a stringency increase for thermal performance to 7 Stars (NatHERS) equivalent and two options for energy consumption. Option One achieves net-zero regulated energy, that will require the installation of onsite energy generation. Option Two sets a maximum energy budget target greater than zero, which allows more flexibility. Simultaneously, the ABCB has the following work underway: quantifying the new performance requirements for energy efficiency; setting the parameters for Whole of House assessment that will reside in the NCC; updating the existing Deemed-To-Satisfy requirements for energy efficiency to match 7-Star performance; and, the reassessment of criteria used in the Reference Building Verification Method V2.6.2.2

In addition, the trajectory recommended the development of tools for the assessment of the energy performance of existing homes. For all these proposed policy changes to be implemented, a lot of research and analysis work needs to be done. Some of the improvements to existing NatHERS tools include updates to climate files, windows, split heating and cooling. Potential developments include thermal bridging, air tightness, thermal comfort and behavioural assumptions. Developing protocols for tools and software, testing and comparing existing tools, developing training and accreditation as well as requirements for existing home assessments are also under review. These policy and regulatory changes will impact on the design of all residential buildings, so I encourage all practitioners to be engaged and contribute to the debate.

Advocacy