By Tina Perinotto CASE STUDY - 11 February 2010 - CFS Retail Property Trust and the Gandel Group has swept aside the challenges of going green for retail property, winning the first 5 Star Green Star for retail centres in Australia for the massive Chadstone Shopping Centre. The top green rating ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES: 5 November 2009 - The Southport Broadwater Parklands project may well be a blueprint for adaptive planning solutions to combat sea level rise and storm surge on our coastlines. It involved some creative methods, including raising ground levels in some places by two metres. With its spectacular Nerang ...Read More > >

FAVOURITES - 30 July 2010 - Smart Design Studio took out two awards at the NSW Architecture Awards 2009, with two separate entries. One was a project for the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) by Smart Design Studio won the Milo Dunphy Award for Sustainable Architecture. Interestingly the client chose not ...Read More > >

Pixel on Grocon's Melbourne Carlton brewery site, designed by Studio 505: a laboratory for new green architecture ... “Nobody can tell you accurately what the financial impost will be of the cost of a carbon constrained economy,” says David Waldren by Tina Perinotto FAVOURITES - 6 May ...Read More > >

FAVOURITES -  23 April 2009 - Woolworths has set the sustainable property bar high for retail, aiming for carbon emissions cuts of 40 per cent by 2015 and water savings of 200 million litres per year, Woolworths’ environmental advisor,  Kane Hardingham, told delegates at the Energy Efficiency Forum, held in Sydney ...Read More > >

FAVOURITES - 30 July 2009 -The Ecovillage at Currumbin on the southern Gold Coast is in its final development phase, 14 years after the idea was first hatched by Landmatters’ Chris Walton, Kerry Shepherd and Colin Bear. Located in the Currumbin Valley, The Ecovillage claims to have “pioneered how we must ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY - 27 August 2009 - Who says a fast-designed, fast built school constructed under the federal government’s Building the Education Revolution program, can’t be sustainable and innovative. At Ultimo in Sydney’s inner west a new primary school library and multi-purpose hall designed by Allen Jack+Cottier will feature a “kit ...Read More > >

by Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES - 1 October 2009 - The construction of GPT's sustainable office tower at 111 Eagle St Brisbane is another vote of confidence in the ability of premium sustainable buildings to attract tenants in difficult economic times. The building, touted to be one of Australia’s most sustainable office developments ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY - 14 December 2009 - The tension between the preservation of heritage buildings and sustainable outcomes often leads to a minefield. But at the The Victorian Railways No.2 Goods Shed in Melbourne’s Docklands, Lorenz Grollo’s Equiset and VicUrban, the Building Commission and the Plumbing Industry Commission have proved ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 10 December 2009 - ANZ House at 11 Waymouth Street Adelaide has been awarded a 5 star NABERS rating for its second year of operation, increasing its target outcomes in the process. According to Matthew Salisbury director of WSP Lincolne Scott, which designed the building services, ANZ House achieved ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY: 3 December 2009 - Singapore-based architecture firm WOHA has won multiple awards for its sustainable designs. Following is a profile of Newton Suites which was recently recognised for its sustainability achievements by the Australian Institute of Architects. This 36-storey development is a study in environmental solutions to tropical high-rise ...Read More > >

Perth officer tower Central Park has offset carbon emissions generated by the building's core services through the purchase of greenhouse friendly carbon credits,  the owners of the building, Perron Group and Frasers Centrepoint, say in the following case study: The building’s Carbon Neutral Program, which excludes areas occupied by the tenants, ...Read More > >

by Nick Jones CASE STUDY - 5 November 2009 - How to deal with an existing and ageing national building stock designed and built in times when requirements for high standards of energy efficiency were not even contemplated? This a dilemma facing the architects of energy efficiency programs here in Australia ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 6 November 2009 - One of Australia’s most magical, charming and sustainable buildings, designed for a  very low budget, has won the prestigious World Architecture Festival Awards, sports section, announced today in Barcelona. Two other Australian firms also won in their categories - Sydney based Choi Ropiha, with ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY - Architects for the new Faculty of Law  building at the University of Sydney, Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp say this  "international competition-winning proposal transforms the public domain of the heart of the University through the integration of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. "The project redefines the historic relation­ship of ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY - 21 October 2009 - The Australian Bureau of Statistics Central Offices at Belconnen in Canberra had a 4.5 star NABERS Energy base building rating. But its tenancy rating was a below average two stars. The building was a relatively modern 34,000 square metre structure commissioned in 2002, with ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY - 19 October 2009 - If there has been a softening of commitment to high quality green buildings during the recent financial crisis, there is no evidence of this happening with Investa’s latest green showcase, The Ark, in North Sydney. The building is the first six star Green Star ...Read More > >

A sustainable and colourful redesign of an Adelaide building has helped to both reposition the building and rebrand the city’s Light Square precinct, according to the building’s designers. Designed by Adelaide architects Hames Sharley, the refurbished building at 70 Light Square is the first in Adelaide to receive a 4 star ...Read More > >

CASE STUDY: The Melbourne Convention Centre won not only the Built Environment Award in the 2009 Banksia Awards, announced in July, but it was also the first convention centre in the world to be awarded [the equivalent of] a 6 Star Green Star environmental rating by the Green Building Council ...Read More > >

BRIEF - 23 September 2009 - At last curious householders can go and see what a real live green house looks like and talk to the architect, thanks to the City of Sydney’s sustainable house project which will be open to the public 15-18 October at Taylor Square in inner ...Read More > >

FAVOURITES - 10 August 2009 - Winner of the Sustainable Architecture Award at the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) Victorian Chapter Awards was Lend Lease building, The Gauge. Located in Victoria Harbour in the Docklands precinct, construction of the project commenced in 2005 and was completed in April 2008 and achieved ...Read More > >

By Michael Barnes – ISIS projects FAVOURITES - 16 JULY 2009 - “Green” remains the key building focus for the first decade of the 21st century. It is certainly front-of-mind for many of the owners of Australia’s buildings. And so it should be – The International Energy Agency estimates that buildings ...Read More > >

The cylindrical skeleton of a former giant oil tank stands sentinel at the newly opened Ballast Point Park in Sydney’s inner west Balmain. Encrypted into the metal through punctured holes are the words of poet Les Murray: Stone statues of ancient waves, tongue like dingoes on shore. It’s an artistic finial ...Read More > >

Snowy Mountains House by James Stockwell Architects won three major awards, the Architecture Award for Residential Architecture; Blacket Prize for regional architecture; and the Colorbond Award. [See related story: A Jury's roadshow, by Genevieve Lilley ] Although it was not entered as a sustainable house, its small footprint,  budget of around $500,000 and ...Read More > >

by Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES - 15 July 2009 - The City of Sydney’s recently opened Surry Hills Community Centre is expected to set new standards for integrated sustainable design for Sydney’s public buildings. Designed by architecture firm fjmt, headed by Richard Francis-Jones, the building integrates innovative environmental systems into a flexible state-of-the-art ...Read More > >

by Lynne Blundell Sydney’s laneways are about to get a sustainable makeover, adorned with everything from silver birch forests, canopies of bird cages, giant fluorescent light tubes, a mini outdoor cinema and a seven metre high bar to highlight climate change. Laneways by George! Hidden Networks is the City of Sydney’s second ...Read More > >

By Andrew Zinni 6 April 2009 - The aim of new headquarters for Bendigo Bank was for a building that consumed half the energy of a typical office building, reduced potable water use by more than 50 per cent, and allowed for ease of maintenance, repair and replacement. The new state-of-the-art Bendigo ...Read More > >

"The Design Hub will be a centre for collaboration – a place to develop world-class concepts and initiatives that will raise this city’s and Victoria’s international profile"- RMIT Vice Chancellor, Professor Margaret Gardner by Lynne Blundell July 5, 2009: With the appointment today of building contractor Watpac Construction (Vic), work will soon ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto Melbourne’s Wholesale produce market has slashed $10,000 from its monthly water bill after commissioning a water metering system through Sydney based company, Watersave Australia. Managing director of Watersave, Paul Marsh, said his company’s Smart Meter resulted in a water use dropping from 93 million litres a day to less ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto... A Western Australian development by Match and investment group Hawaiian has scored a victory in multi housing design, challenging the notion that apartment projects can only strive for modest environmental targets. The project, The Summer, on South Beach Esplanade in South Fremantle, has been awarded the country’s first Green ...Read More > >