Education & Research Winner at the Sustainability Awards 2024, Fern Street Children's Centre, designed by Zen Architects, is situated within F.G. Tricks Reserve in Black Rock, Victoria.

The centre comprises a two-room kindergarten accommodating 66 children, a Maternal and Child Health consulting room, and a multi-purpose community space.

The jury described the project as “aspirational”, and a “beautiful response to the site”.

The team sits down with Architecture & Design’s Digital Editor Clémence Carayol to discuss their win.

Architecture & Design: Why do you think you were honoured

Zen Architects: The children’s centre is a passive solar building in a park setting. It follows our long held intention to make buildings low carbon in construction and operation for life. We made sustainable architecture part of the children’s pedagogy. We put the children first in all of our decisions and made sure they would be surrounded by nature with low toxic materials internally and simple systems to allow fresh air intake while maintaining comfort. We designed the building around the protected trees, with minimum disturbance to the soil using screw piles. A renewable lightweight timber building that pushes conventional timber framing in a commercial context, using far less steel and concrete than the norm. By paying attention to doing all the simple things well, such as framing, cladding, plastering, insulating, breathable building wrap and sealing the envelope we were able to achieve a high level of environmental performance far beyond the average for a similar building.

What did your entry add to the body of knowledge of sustainable design?

Design is still the most important factor in determining the success of a building and more time for testing ideas should be allowed in the early stages. Conventional building systems can deliver high performance through design, material selection and careful on site construction with specific testing at key stages to ensures design targets are met.

Has your entry influenced the way you will design buildings in the future?

We have gained more confidence in our ability to design and manage a high performance sustainable building through the complex stakeholder processes including council and community concerns through to tendering, value management and construction, testing, defects and handover. We can provide evidence that sustainable design works, it’s aesthetically pleasing, it’s healthy for users and it is cost comparative, and it will last.

Good design is the key.

This category is sponsored by Wood Solutions.

Image: Fern Street Children's Centre, designed by Zen Architects.

Clémence Carayol

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