Green Building in Australia 2006

A recent conference in Australia on green building highlighted the commercial merits of green design in a country that had previously seemed slow to follow the international trend towards greater ecological sustainability. The conference drew an audience of well over 300 architects, showing that green building has in fact arrived “down under”.

The Green Building in Australia 2006 conference, held in Sydney’s Westin Hotel on 15 September 2006, was the product of a close partnership forged earlier in the year between BCI Australia (sister company to BCI Asia) and the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). The BCI Australia-GBCA partnership aims to promote green building as a commercially viable and more responsible alternative to conventional approaches to building in Australia. The two organisations undertook a joint market study to gauge the state of green building in Australia, the presentation of which took centre stage at the Sydney conference. The conference was co-hosted by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA); RAIA’s NSW President Dr. Deborah Dearing and Peter Poulet, a senior architect from the New South Wales Government’s Architects Office, introduced the event’s speakers.

In his opening address Dr. Matthias Krups, chairman of the BCI Group of Companies and publisher of FuturArc, pointed out that this was BCI’s second green building conference for 2006; the first one was held in China in March. And for good reason: “As a construction community organiser, it is not only our opportunity but also our responsibility to encourage a national conversation in the construction and property sector about how to make the built environment more ecologically sustainable,” Dr. Krups said. “As a global community we are using in one single day the non-renewable energy it takes the earth 10,000 days to generate. Approximately 40 percent of this energy and the world’s materials are being consumed by the building sector, and close to 50 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are directly influenced by the role of building professionals, in particular architects.”

To encourage architects to take a more proactive stance on sustainable design, the conference portrayed the current Australian green building landscape against a backdrop of international developments both east (Asia) and west (USA). Supporting that objective were the conference’s two keynote speakers: Bill Valentine, chairman of international architectural giant Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK) and ardent advocate for sustainability in architecture; and Dr. Kenneth Yeang, principal of Londonbased architecture firm Llewellyn Davies Yeang, prolific Malaysian architect and world expert on sustainable design.

Mr. Valentine offered his “Less is More” mantra in a presentation that spanned environmentally responsible and not-soresponsible choices in our daily lives, always leading to the question: “Wouldn’t a little less do, too?”

Following Mr. Valentine, Dr. Krups presented some of the salient findings of the BCI-GBCA Green Building Market Report 2006 (excerpted on page 28). The upshot of his message was that green building is a leading-edge phenomenon in the market. Stakeholders in the construction sector agreed that the market had passed the point of no return in demanding sustainable architecture.

“I think there is no doubt that the market for green building is alive and well, and that it is likely to grow fast,” Dr. Krups said in his presentation. However, he noted that there is a lag among Australian suppliers in terms of understanding the need to market their products as green; the report found that stakeholders could not identify clear market leaders of environmentally proven products. “The conclusion is: brands that will move fast into this space are likely to enjoy significant first-mover advantages, because specifiers and developers are looking,” Dr. Krups said.

Also, he said that green design, while generally seen as inherent to good design, has not yet entered the Australian mainstream. “Architects need to take the lead in promoting green building principles and practices as the new industry standard. Those that do are likely to have a leg up in the market down the road.”

Supporting Dr. Krups’ idea of market acceptance, Romilly Madew, CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia, said that green building education and advocacy had come a long way. Responsible leadership, particularly by state governments and large corporate clients in Australia, was a driving force in implementing the GBCA’s Green Star certification system, she noted.

Paul Sweatman, New South Wales marketing manager of laminates manufacturer Laminex, and Andrew Lopez, CEO of CAD-provider Graphisoft, then highlighted as conference patrons how the industry was responding to the need to make buildings more ecologically sustainable.

Dr. Kenneth Yeang started off the afternoon session with a bang when he delivered the second keynote speech on “The Convergence of Green and Great Design”. He presented examples of his unique brand of bioclimatic skyscrapers— passive low-energy high-rise buildings featuring ‘vertical landscaping’, extensive natural ventilation and lighting and an ‘active intelligent building system’ for automated energy savings.

The conference was concluded with presentations of two high-profile green projects in Australia. Craig Burns, practice director at the firm Bligh Voller Nield, presented Australia’s most highly-decorated green project: the Royal Australian Air Force’s Richmond headquarters in New South Wales, which is the first project to be awarded the GBCA’s 5-Star Green Star— Office Design, 5-Star Green Star—Office as Built, and 5-Star Green Star—Office Interiors ratings.

Andrew Borger, project director at the developer Leighton Properties, then showcased Green Square South Tower, the first Green Star certified project in Brisbane, awarded a 5-Star Green Star—Office Design rating.