A group of leading Australian experts in sustainable architecture, building design and innovation will judge the BPN Sustainability Awards in 2014.

The awards are now in their eighth year, and will once again recognise the projects and products from across Australia at the forefront in sustainable building.

The jury will include PIDCOCK - Architecture + Sustainability founder Caroline Pidcock; Dick Clarke, the director of sustainable building consultancy Envirotecture; and Gerard Reinmuth, a founding director of architecture practice TERROIR and Professor of Practice at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).

The highly experienced practitioners will be joined this year by one of the Australian green building industry’s leading ‘anti-greenwash’ experts, marketing professional Suzie Barnett.

The judges will bring their unique perspectives on sustainability together to decide which entrants demonstrate the highest levels of excellence in contributing to a sustainable built environment.

The awards finalist will be announced later this month, with winners presented at a gala dinner in Sydney on October 23, 2014.

They will also feature in print in upcoming Infolink – Building Products News magazine editions.

Introducing the jury:

Caroline Pidcock

Caroline’s genuine interest and experience in sustainable built environments has been developed and enhanced through her involvement in a wide range of professional, academic and other commitments. This currently includes being the director of the companies PIDCOCK - Architecture + Sustainability and Origination | &U (which is developing a new prefab building system); member of the Living Future Institute Australia Boards; member of the South Australian Forest Industry Advisory and Sacred Heart Education Ministry Boards; and ambassador for both the Al Gore Climate Change and 1 Million Women projects.

Her previous roles as President of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council, President NSW and National Councillor of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, Industry Representative on the Australian Building Codes Board, Chair of the Carriageworks and Living Future Institute Australia Boards, Member of the NSW Architects Registration Board, Member of Bicycle NSW Board and adjunct professor/lecturer at a range of universities in NSW, exposed her to many government, business, academic and community arenas.

In November 2009, Caroline was awarded a Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship to investigate the "The Architecture of Zero Emissions Housing". She wanted to understand how this might impact the technical and design approaches of the practice. Extending the ideas of this research led her to the Living Building Challenge. Impressed with this sustainability framework and the positive approach to improving our built environments and ways of living, she joined the Board charged with delivering it in Australia - the Living Futures Institute of Australia - and was Chair through 2013. As a result of her contribution to helping the LFIA establish in Australia, Caroline was recognised as a “Living Building Hero” by the International Living Future Institute in 2014.

In 2011 Caroline was awarded the Marion Mahony Griffin Award in recognition of her contribution to architecture in NSW.

Gerard Reinmuth

Gerard Reinmuth is a practicing architect and designer. He is a founding director (with Richard Blythe and Scott Balmforth) of TERROIR, an Australian practice which imbues its architecture with research into philosophy, art and popular culture. It has offices in Sydney and Copenhagen.

Gerard is the inaugural Professor of Practice at UTS, where he coordinates the Practice stream of subjects and teaches in the Masters design studios. He is founder of the International Studio at the Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark, where he is also a Visiting Professor.

His research spans a range of topics in architectural practice, including sustainability and procurement practices. His primary research focus in the coming period is the agency of the architect in the making of the city.

Gerard held the Creative Directorship of the Australian 2009 National Architecture Conference (Parallax) and was a juror for the 2007 Australian National Architecture Awards. TERROIR has featured in a number of international and national exhibitions and publications including AV monographs Emergentes, featuring 20 international emerging architects, the Phaidon 10x10/3 volume and the Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture. A monograph on the practice, titled TERROIR: Cosmopolitan Ground,was published in 2007.

In 2012, Gerard and Anthony Burke were Creative Directors for the Australian exhibition Formations: New Practices in Australian Architecture at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.

Gerard has taught and lectured at schools of architecture in Australia and Europe. He regularly writes and comments on issues affecting the profession and teaching of architecture to equip students for the challenges of working in the globally-interconnected society of the 21st century.

Dick Clarke

Our returning judge on the awards panel, Dick Clarke, is the founding director of Envirotecture, which offers a range of training courses tailored to increase practical solutions which focus on sustainable knowledge in building design and construction.

Dick is involved with various government and non-governmental bodies on environmental issues surrounding the built environment. He was recently involved in writing and editing the 5th Edition of the widely acclaimed Your Home Technical Manual, and previously sat on the NatHERS AccuRate Technical Advisory Committee, and the BASIX Industry Reference Group.

He holds a Master of Sustainable Futures degree by research (from the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS), having pursued the topic of the effect of state and local planning instruments on the sustainability of the built environment.

Having trained with Al Gore in November 2006, Dick is a volunteer presenter with the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Climate ProjectHe is also the Director of Sustainability at the BDA of NSW, and past President of the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA).

Suzie Barnett

A strategic thinker, marketer and industry connector, Suzie was a key player in establishing the green building movement in Australia and globally. From 2002 – 2012 she worked for the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), a not-for-profit organisation that has grown from a small industry group to an internationally recognised green building authority. During this time she also worked with the World Green Building Council, a network of green building councils influencing the green building marketplace worldwide.

Suzie’s current focus is on driving change in the building product supply chain and trends such as circular economy, health and wellbeing, toxicity, transparency and new procurement methods. With over a decade of experience working within the green building industry she is tired of the greenwash, superficial marketing and lack of authenticity. So, in 2012, together with global sustainability leaders David Gottfried, Ché Wall and Maria Atkinson, she established RegenX – a non-competitive, collaborative leadership group focusing on business disruption strategies in the building supply chain.

In 2013 she started her own PR and Marketing consulting business, Suzie Barnett Consulting, and began a successful collaboration with Nicole Smith at Tin Shed Marketing to deliver marketing strategies and advice to companies dedicated to the supply of authentic and genuine green building products and services.

Suzie holds a degree in Commerce (PR & Marketing) and has over 20 years of experience positioning and creating new business opportunities for small, medium and large companies throughout Australia. She has spoken at many conferences in both Australia and overseas on the topic of green building and also been involved in the inception, writing and editing of key research and publications such as “The Dollars & Sense of Green Buildings”, “Valuing Green” and the “Green Building Market Report”.

Tickets are now on sale for the gala awards presentation, to be held on 23 October at Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf, Sydney. Please visit our awards page for further information and to purchase tickets.

The Awards are proudly sponsored by:

CAROMA, GYPROCK, INNOWOOD, USG BORAL, KNAUF, GLASSWORKS, STONESET

David Wheeldon

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