SYDNEY HARBOUR YHA

SUBMITTED BY TZANNES ASSOCIATES

Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (SHFA) issued a brief for this archaeologically significant site requiring a financially, environmentally and socially viable building. It was designed to be the first purpose-built environmentally sustainable youth hostel in an Australian city.

INITIATIVES:

  • materials are long life, generally have low embodied energy and require little maintenance
  • a 50 per cent reduction in energy usage and 30 per cent reduction in water usage was achieved
  • Solar hot water panels
  • gas powered generator to supply up to 70 per cent of the hostel’s peak energy demands
  • energy monitoring system to monitor usage by area throughout the hostel
  • 80,000 litre rain water retention/detention tanks with this water re-used for toilet flushing 
(and potentially laundry)
  • all taps are 5-star WELS and showers 3-star WELS rated
  • waterless urinals
  • Careful selection of environmentally accredited materials - low VOC and low formaldehyde building 
materials used; including joinery materials, rubber flooring, carpet and pin boards
  • recycled rubber flooring
  • recycling of glass, paper, plastic, batteries, clothing
  • tapex bins made from recycled plastic
  • on-site Big Dig Archaeology Education Centre on the site allows school groups to take part 
in a simulated archaeological dig

Image courtesy Richard Glover

CRISIS ACCOMODATION CENTRE

SUBMITTED BY CHRISTOPHER M SHIELDS ARCHITECT

(Details in Multi-Density Residential, page 23)

RURAL FIRE STATION

SUBMITTED BY COX ARCHITECTS

Following the Victorian bushfires and consequent tougher regulations in bushfire-prone regions, Cox Architects designed a rural fire station, developing it as a full size prototype building to test and further develop a unique construction system the client had conceptualised.

INITIATIVES:


  • designed to be sustainable against the full effect of bush fires and other extreme weather events

  • the building is self-sufficient and requires no grid supplied services, such as electricity and water
  • self generating energy
  • the building construction system and design, including the fire shutters, passed the tests of compliance for registration of local and international patents
  • system and building has achieved the highest current bush fire resistance rating in Australia
• uses minimal energy
  • Melbourne’s art and design culture has a rich
history of enlivening dormant urban quarters,
and spurring commercial demand in low rent
precincts. But the client noted artists are
frequently displaced beyond the urban fringe. Reacting against this, Creative Spaces engaged Breathe Architects to repurpose and enliven a vacant warehouse into affordable artist studios coined River Studios.

RIVER STUDIOS

SUBMITTED BY BREATHE ARCHITECTURE

INITIATIVES:

  • over three levels and 3,000 sqm, 57 multi-use studios of differing scale and enclosure are strung between informal gathering areas, kitchenette, services spaces and bicycle parking
  • the existing warehouse shell was
stripped back on the design intervention to create flexible form of salvaged materials
  • the project generated negligible waste during construction
  • new materials contained low embodied energy
  • using recycling materials and reuse of building itself, the net of energy
  • of the fit-out was reduced
• plantation hoop pine plywood was
  • used as interior lining fixed to ‘partition’ fencing framework, salvaged and or recycled items for lighting, furniture and wall linings
  • recycled doors, windows, light fittings, furniture, sheet metal, plumbing fictures, GPOs, furniture, kitchen joinery and floorboards were used
  • River Studios acts as blank canvas for Melbourne’s emerging and established artists, cultivating in a once dormant back pocket of the city