The Living Future Institute of Australia has unveiled the winners of the ILLUMANATE Living Building Challenge Design Competition, which asked contestants to design the most regenerative, and restorative, heritage-listed building in Australia.

Based upon a heritage-listed building from the 1970s in Melbourne’s Sunshine North, entrants were divided into three categories of professional and student, while a people’s choice was also awarded.

Includesign & Mine the Sky took out the Professional Category for their submission (pictured), which creates a narrative between two creeks that is based on the practices of the Kurung-jang-balluk people who would have rested, feasted, hunted and told stories on the site.

The University of Melbourne’s Chon Kei Lam was awarded the Student Category for her submission Breathe on the Land. In an attempt to reposition the site as nature-centric, Lam’s utilisation of surrounding remnant grassland created the ability to reimagine the future life of living on grassland.

“In the contemporary world, there exists a clear boundary between human and nature,” Lam says.

"’Nature’ is often referred to as plants or animals from which we exclude ourselves.”

The final category, People’s Choice, was awarded to Resonance by arkee studio. The practice’s submission intertwines heritage conservation and sustainability to create The Sunshine Hub, a thriving community hub that has been created with current and future users in mind.

The three projects were selected from a total of 33 submissions, with circular economy, nature-based, and nature-positive concepts an underlying theme of each submission. Living Future Institute CEO Laura Hamilton-O’Hara believes the decision to create a brief around existing buildings was made in order to reach net zero via the retrofitting of existing stock.

“We are delighted by the number and quality of entries we received this year. It certainly made the judging a challenge,” she says.

“Thank you to all the teams for the amount of time and care put into your entry. To see the building come to life in many unique, regenerative and imaginative ways was inspiring.”

Submissions were initially assessed against Living Building Challenge imperatives, and whether they were able to achieve a minimum of Petal Certification. From there, entrants were then judged on functionality and realisation potential, with designs needing to demonstrate practicality. Additionally, the Judging Panel aimed to assess whether these designs could realistically achieve the Living Building challenge.

Jarrod Reedie

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