Interior design firm Geyer has completed Victoria’s first sustainable Green Star Office Interiors v1.1 project for the new Victorian Auditor-General's Office (VAGO) head office at 35 Collins Street, Melbourne.
Interiors v1.1 is a measurement tool for office interiors only, used to determine the suitability and longevity of fitout materials after a 12-month occupancy period.
Geyer was commissioned as designer to develop a brief for the future accommodation and evaluate three buildings in line with VAGO’s detailed brief. Following building selection, Montlaur was commissioned for project management and Connell Wagner were selected as services engineers and ESD specialist.
All elements — including design detailing, services design, and finish selection — were developed on the basis of achieving the targeted 4-star ABGR and Green Star fitout rating. In addition to VAGO’s purchasing 25 per cent green power, Geyer has also provided electricity sub-meters to assist the building manager to monitor the electricity usage.
Meters are connected to the building management system, allowing easy monitoring of energy consumption for each electrical load. An efficient lighting system accounts for 16 per cent of estimated energy use, in comparison to the 67 per cent use in typical offices. This reduction is mainly due to the provision of motion sensors, daylight sensors to vary the intensity of lighting to suit the time of day, and high efficiency lighting.
More than 95 per cent of the luminaires used in the fitout are T5 linear fluorescents. In addition, automatically enabled power save modes on peripherals printers, photocopiers, and fax machines, will save up to 25 watts of power compared to VAGO's previous office system.
VAGO has also considerably minimised its consumption of potable water. Water efficient fixtures such as toilets (6/3 litre dual flush), waterless urinals, 4 star sensor taps and 3 star showerheads were installed to reduce water consumption. VAGO will now save up to 55 per cent of water compared to a typical office with standard water fixtures.
