9 minute read
GREEN LIVING
The Sunlight House, Cape Patterson.
Sustainability winners from the 2020 Master Builders Victoria Excellence in Housing and Construction Awards
Dr Phillip Alviano Sustainability Advisor Best Sustainable Home, Master Builders Victoria Excellence in Housing Awards 2020
The Sunlight House, Cape Patterson, was built by North South Homes and won Best Sustainable Home at the 2020 Master Builders Victoria Excellence in Housing Awards, and provides an excellent example of what can be achieved in new home construction. Being built and certified to the Passive House standard required careful attention during the design and construction process to include reduced thermal bridging, high levels of insulation, quality triple glazed windows and post-construction tested airtightness of 0.6 air changes per hour @50 Pa. The high insulation levels were catered for by having wider 140mm walls with R4 insulation, 240mm roof rafters with R6 insulation and 240mm joists with
The Sunlight House, Cape Patterson.
R6 insulation. Airtightness and condensation was controlled by wrapping the inside walls with Intello wrap, and a vapour-permeable membrane was used on the outside of the frame. When the doors and windows are closed, fresh filtered air is provided by a heat recovery ventilation system. This Passive House has an 8-Stars NatHERS rating, abundant natural light and designed to fit in with the surrounding landscape. The property was built on a north-facing aspect, maximising the warm winter sun to the living and bedroom areas. During summer, the careful placement of external shading keeps the sun out. The six-kilowatt photovoltaic system on the roof will readily provide more energy than the house will ever use. The all-electric house uses a heat-pump hot water system, induction cooktop and a single small air-conditioning unit to provide supplementary heating and cooling when required. North South Homes and the client went above and beyond in their choice of materials. Certified timbers were used, including Spotted Gum cladding, Cypress Pine pergolas and Blackbutt flooring. The kitchen benches were made from Paperock, which uses recycled paper and emits no VOCs. A pre-fabricated wall, floor and roof system also reduced the production of waste on-site.
The Burwood Brickworks Shopping Centre, built by Hacer Group, won Best Sustainable Project at the 2020 Master Builders Excellence in Construction Awards. Burwood Brickworks is like no other retail shopping centre. The centre was designed to be a leader in sustainable development, and having an urban farm, café and chickens on the roof certainly goes some way to delivering on this. Hacer Group were required to deliver a shopping centre that fulfiled the commercial interests of more than 45 tenents (including a cinema) while integrating the most stringent environmental criteria to satisfy the requirements of the Green Building Council of Australia and the International Living Building Institute (ILBI). The centre achieved a 6-Star Greenstar As Built rating. The overall structure included a basement car park, a 4000sqm deck over the car park and approximately 2000sqm for an urban farm tenancy. The façade was largely precast using recycled crushed brick and incorporated salvaged brickwork, salvaged timber and expansive windows. The car park even incorporated bioswales for water reuse and feature landscaping intricately integrated with the façade. In addition to this, the project was required to meet the Living Building Challenge (LBC) of the ILBI; meaning that the building had to meet the requirements of several key areas grouped under the headings — Place, Water, Energy, Health and Happiness, Materials, Equity and Beauty. During the construction process, the focus was on material compliance, waste mitigation and reusing salvaged products. Material compliance involved obtaining and reviewing all ingredients that make up each component of every product installed, applied or placed on site. There were more than 850 ingredients that needed to be avoided as they are considered worst-in-class materials/chemicals with the most significant impact on human and ecosystem health. The procurement strategy necessitated at least 20% of the projects products/cost were sourced within 2000km, 30% within 5000km and 25% within 9000km from the project site to satisfy the living economy imperative. In the end, more than 80% of the project’s products/cost were sourced within 2000km by focusing on the selection of materials from salvaged opportunities wherever possible. For example, utilising the formwork from the concrete pours as a hanging installation and as wall cladding in the main car park entry lobby. As part of the Green Star criteria, 90% of construction waste had to be diverted from landfill. In addition to this, the LBC also had specific targets for particular waste streams. For example, 99% of metals and cardboards were recycled, and 100% of soil and biowaste was reused on nearby projects sites. This was managed using multiple bins on site, clear signage and site policing to ensure separation of waste streams allowing for ease of waste diversion. Nine bays of north-facing operable windows, each spanning more than 16 metres each, allow the building to access natural daylight and fresh air. For all regularly occupied tenant spaces, where the natural daylight and air may not reach, openable skylights have been installed with tenancy controls. Within the centrally located Woolworths tenancy, SolaTubes have been installed to allow daylight to channel down to employees working in the store.
The Burwood Brickworks Shopping Centre.
Close to 3000 PV panels have been installed across the roof deck of the Burwood Brickworks Shopping Centre, which contributes towards the power supply demanded by the building’s use. The system will supply 1MW of power. A closed-loop water system has been installed on the basement level of the building to treat wastewater. This system has been designed to capture, treat and reuse both rain and wastewater sourced from the Burwood Brickworks Shopping Centre for use in the toilets and gardening areas. An essential part of the construction process was ensuring that subcontractors were aware of the sustainability initiatives to ensure they were met. Educating subcontractors on the purpose of LBC and Green Star requirements was an ongoing process throughout to alleviate the initial overwhelm felt by the trades. It was also important to ensure that the education delivered to the project managers was filtering down to the broader subcontractor team on site. As such, ongoing sustainability education was conducted via inductions, Toolbox Meetings and posters to ensure the message regarding sustainability initiatives during construction reached all those involved in the project. An additional component of the site management of LBC and Green Star largely revolved around policing the use of approved materials, rather than off the shelf solutions, and ensuring the correct bin for waste disposal was used.
For more information and to discover ways to improve environmental efficiencies, while boosting productivity, creating jobs and healthy spaces, contact the Master Builders Victoria Sustainable Building Services team on (03) 9411 4555.
The Burwood Brickworks Shopping Centre.
Incolink Assist
Your bespoke Employee Assistance Program. Built by Incolink, experts in well being.
Incolink Assist is the employee assistance program designed and built for Australia’s construction and manufacturing industry. Our Employee Assistance program helps you help your staff.
Phone / Skype Counselling
How does Incolink Assist work?
Incolink will create a personalised corporate landing page, with your branding, for staff to access information about the service. You’ll also be provided with your company’s own 1300 number to allow workers to access phone or skype counselling service.
It can form a key part of your work to promote a mentally healthy workplace so that people can realise their potential while coping with the ordinary challenges of life.
You can choose how many sessions your staff will be eligible to access under this service.
Why engage an Employee Assistance Service?
Mental health conditions cost Australian workplaces $10.9 billion each year – more than any physical injury. One in five Australians will experience a poor mental health episode in any one year.
The stress can be sudden, or build over time, and impact the employee’s wellbeing and performance.
The construction and manufacturing industry is a highpressure environment and providing access to an Employee Assistance Program that understands the industry, whilst offering a wide range of specialist counselling services can contribute to them being an employer of choice. This in turn increases employee satisfaction and retention.
Early intervention and easy access to treatment can reduce the duration of a mental health episode and enable an employee to participate more fully in the workplace. There are three offerings. You can choose one, two or all three.
Counselling sessions with a trained counsellor. Face to face sessions are available at Incolink’s Carlton (Victoria) office. Visits to your office can be arranged at fee for service.
Critical Incident Support
A trained counsellor to visit your office immediately after a critical incident to speak with staff and allow them to debrief
Psych-Ed Training Sessions
Mental health awareness sessions designed to increase your people’s ability to recognise risks to their mental health. They can cover a range of topics from anxiety to stress to addiction. These are conducted on your premises.
What does it cost?
Phone/Skype Counselling Support Face to face at Incolink Office (extra charges apply for counselling on employer premises)
Critical Incident Support
Psych Ed – Training Sessions $150 per session
$450 per hour (1 counsellor) at Employer offices
$3,000 full day training at Employer Office
Is there a minimum spend?
One of the advantages of Incolink Assist is that you pay for the services you use. There’s no minimum spends per month.
How are you billed?
Each month you’ll receive an invoice for the previous month’s number of sessions. What reporting do you receive?
Incolink respects the confidentiality of its service but realises employers require meaningful reporting to track their spend and the value their employees are receiving.
Having your own landing page and 1300 number means we can track calls and site visits and we will report against these. Your invoice also indicates how many sessions have been used by your staff.
A quarterly newsletter will be provided that provides meaningful reporting indicating the trends we’re seeing across the service, demographic date, types of issues - be they workplace, personal relationship issues, financial.
Contact us
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HiAce LWB Crew Van shown.
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To find out more, visit your local Toyota Fleet Dealer or call 1800 679 247
toyota.com.au/fleet
1 Discount available across the Toyota HiAce range. T&Cs apply. 2 Driver assist feature. Only operates under certain conditions. Check your Owner’s Manual for explanation of limitations. Please drive safely. 3 CarPlay® is a trademark of Apple, Inc. registered in the U.S and other countries. Functionality varies depending on device. See toyota.com.au/connected for compatibility. Available on certain models and grades only. 4 Android Auto™ is a trademark of Google LLC. Functionality varies depending on device. See toyota.com.au/connected for compatibility. Available on certain models and grades only.
