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Business View Australia - November-December 2015
to its coastal setting and place. It seeks
to be:
Beautiful, inspiring and educational;
Water, energy and carbon neutral;
Socially responsible and equitable; and
Non toxic and healthy.
“Bricolage” or the tinkering together
an object from a diverse range of found
things underpinned the approach to
craft and material.
Thedesignof thebuildingensuresthat it
has extremely low energy consumption.
In addition to this, it is equipped with
solar rooftop panels with a 160kWp
photovoltaic array. The building’s own
power generation capacity along with
its design, which ensures minimal
electricity consumption, ensures that
more power is generated than is used.
The building has an integrated power
grid capable of simultaneous testing of
multiple renewable energy generation
sources and storage systems.
The SBRC incorporates an onsite
rainwater harvesting and treatment
system,enablingit tohavenet-zerowater
consumption. A grey water separation
and natural reed bed treatment system
enables re-use of grey water.
A fully integrated Green IT building
management system has been
provided. The SBRC is wired to
measure and report on all aspects
of sustainability including workgroup
power consumption and water use.
Natural ventilation has been provided,
with task-based, passive conditioning
using variousmethods including ground
source heating and cooling, solar walls,
and solar thermal systems.
The SBRC uses locally sourced and
environmentally safe construction
materials. Michael Bradburn, who
was the project architect, said, “We
started with a directive to re-use
locally available material, inherently
addressing the embodied carbon and
appropriate sourcing imperatives. The
default approach to reused materials
can be to restore them to look new.
“In the case of the reused brickwork
in the SBRC, the preliminary design
called for plaster and paint, concealing
any evidence of their former life and
imperfect nature.
“However, during construction, the
patterns made by generations of pre-
loved bricks expressed an imperfect
beauty. The tangible history of the
brick complemented by reused timber
and steel creates a subconscious
experience.”