AMBASSADORS

/ JUL-SEP 2021 SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN / 2021 Sustainability Awards Ambassadors

WORDS BRANKO MILETIC

The 2021 Sustainability Awards brings together the architecture and design community celebrating the best in sustainable design throughout Australia. Now in its 15th year the Sustainability Awards is the longest running and most prestigious program dedicated to showcasing sustainable design, in all its forms.

To add to the gravitas of the Sustainability Awards, we present our Ambassadors – six passionate and extraordinary practitioners and commentators who are the face of sustainability and the future. In their daily lives they champion the cause of sustainability and our environment and practice what they preach. Each has expertise in a variety of aspects of sustainable design and they stand tall as champions for the environment and our globe.

BROOKE LLOYD Director, Interior Design, Cox.

Brooke Lloyd, Director, Interior Design, Cox, is an interior designer with a diverse body of work that encompasses restaurants and high-end residences to large-scale workplaces. She has been instrumental in fostering a design focused culture within Cox that has created award-winning projects and reinvigorated the interiors specialism with a progressive approach to design. Brooke worked in London for 10 years firstly at John McAslan + Partners, as Head of Interior Design, and then as Associate with Conran + Partners.

DAVID KAUNITZ Director and Co-founder, Kaunitz Yeung Architecture.

David Kaunitz is Director and Co-founder, Kaunitz Yeung Architecture and he swapped an established career in London for a life in Australia and the Pacific, leading community development projects and post-disaster responses for governments and NGOs. His work has been recognised internationally and he is an in-demand speaker.

David invests his time listening to a community and experiencing a culture before developing a design in order to place people at the heart of a building, while remaining sensitive to culture and the environment. PAUL HAAR Architect.

Throughout his 40-year career, Paul Haar, Architect, has been immersed in practice, education, advocacy and mentorship, informed by deep green principles of ecological science, operating inside small local economic and social systems. The global climate, biodiversity and COVID emergencies now highlight the importance of this approach.

Whether facilitating the revitalisation of self-help housing cultures in remote indigenous communities, driving landmark environmental outcomes for new housing estates, promoting the use of local farm-grown wood in construction, establishing community-based land reafforestation projects, or in his more general architectural work, Paul has always been grounded in sustainability, by science, philosophy and design.

NADINE SAMAHA Senior Principal Architect.

Nadine Samaha, Senior Principal Architect, level architecture>konstrukt. is passionate about making a better world for the new generation. She is an advocate for sustainability and as a principal architect at level architeckture>konstrukt she focuses on pushing the boundaries in design, construction and sustainability. She is also a Leader in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED green associate), and a permaculturist. Nadine lectures in Environmental Sustainable Design and is a research collaborator at RMIT. She is Chair of the AIA Sustainable Architecture Forum, a Councillor at AIA Victorian Chapter and a signatory of Australian Architects Declare. PETER COLQUHOUN Architect, artist and TV Presenter.

Peter Colquhoun is an architect, artist and TV Presenter with extensive media credits across a range of genres. For the past 16 years he has been the resident architect on Australia’s Better Homes and Gardens and he has hosted and presented a range of Lifestyle, Reality and Sports TV programs. He is also creator and host of Sandcastles and Amazing Homes Australia.

Currently he is appearing in the third series of Habitus House of the Year and filming Australia by Design. Peter is also a regular contributor to Habitus, Grand Designs and Better Homes and Gardens as well as author of Sandcastles.

TALINA EDWARDS Principal of Talina Edwards Architecture.

Talina Edwards is Principal of Talina Edwards Architecture based in Wadawurrung country (Ballarat) and is an emerging leader, known for her sustainable architecture. She is a passionate advocate for building a better future and has received many awards recognising her meaningful contributions to sustainability and her active roles in the Australian Passive House Association, Australian Architects Declare and ArchiTeam Advocacy committee.