We started our day off by meeting with Steve Nichols at the “167 Castlereagh” project. Steve is the project developer for Grocon, who is one of Australia’s leading sustainable developers and is also part owner and GC on the 167 Castlereagh project.
The building is a 50 level office tower with a private residence on the top level. The development of the project started in 2000 and the building will be valued at approximately $800,000,000 at its completion. The project design was awarded a Green Star 5-star rating and they were going for a 5-star as-built and NABERS rating as well. The project also included some attached retail buildings and Steve told us that they were going to try to make these buildings the “greenest” in the world. In order to achieve this they were going to incorporate systems that would allow the buildings to make enough energy to run without power from the city grid and they were also going to use a closed loop water system. I think this is a great plan because, if successful, it could prove that commercial buildings could support themselves just like Michael Mobb’s residence and it could serve as an example for other sustainable commercial developments in the future.
ANZ Bank and Freehill Law Firm are the two major tenants in the building and Steve told us that they have been very supportive of the sustainability of the project and care very much about occupying a sustainable space. I think that this private company push to move in to sustainable buildings is fantastic and will really drive the market to build more environmentally efficient product. It is something that you are starting to see with a small number of the US business but I think that if more companies would get on board with this than we could really push green building forward with market forces and stop the government from having to push everyone in that direction.
The building obviously has many sustainable features but I have listed some of the major items that Steve highlighted below. First off, during the demolition of the existing site structure they were able to recycle 95% of the materials. This is a very impressive number and stopped a huge amount of waste from going to a landfill. The building was going to be ventilated with 150% of the fresh air that is required for the building. This means that the air inside the office space is going to be very fresh and it should help improve indoor air quality and the productivity of workers, which both major tenants are very concerned with. The fresh air is going to come in to the building through a large scoop like feature at the top of the building which faces the direction of the prevailing winds. Steve told us that they are also researching the ability to put a wind turbine in this space in order to create energy from the wind collection that could then be used to power the building. I think that this is great and innovative idea that really maximizes the sustainability of the fresh air feature of the building. Steve said they were also researching the placement of solar panels on the roof of the building which would have the same effect at the wind turbines. For power generation and cooling the building was going to utilize a tri-generation plant and high-efficiency chillers that would supply chilled beams in the building. These are two things that we have heard quite a bit about in Australia and I think they could work very well in the US market. The building was also going to use smart lighting controls and sun tracking systems in order to keep the heat load of the building down. As we’ve seen on virtually every project on this trip, the building was also going to harvest its rainwater.
I was very impressed with the project presentation and the project itself. The big thing that I took away from the meeting was that if you connect green motivated tenants with innovative sustainable developers / builders that you can achieve some very great sustainable results in the commercial market. Hopefully this trend will catch on in the states and market forces will keep pushing the green development movement forward.
The second site visit of the day was at the “30 The Bond” building. We were hosted by Matt Williams, who is with the builder / major tenant of the building, Bovis Lend Lease. This building was one of the first green certified buildings in Australia and it has a 5-star design, as-built and NABERS rating. The major feature of the building is also one of the sustainable aspects of the building. This feature is a huge sandstone wall that runs from the bottom floor to level 4. The was was cut by prisoners hundereds of years ago and according to matt it was one of the biggers walls of its kind in the world. It actually acts as a very large thermal mass to suck up a lot of the building heat and the air draft that it creates is used to cool the parking structure under the building. It is a very neat visual building feature and just another example of the multitude of ways that you can use innovative features to create sustainability. The building also contained many more sustainable features including chilled beam cooling, raised floor ventilation, adjusting window louvers, recycled content fixtures, open air office suites and a green roof. It was a very impressive structure that I believe any U.S. or international company would be happy to work in and proves those wrong that believe building sustainable will take away from the appearance of your building.
Matt told us that the real beauty of the building was that it achieved some great sustainable goals without having to incorporate a bunch of exotic building systems and I have to agree with him on this. I think there is a real feeling that in order to do a sustainable project that you have to do a bunch of extra work and incorporate a bunch of systems in your building that you wouldn’t normally use. This feeling is not correct and the 30 Bond project proves again that with some thought and innovation that we can build sustainable buildings without having to jump through hoops or add crazy features to our building. Matt also told us that he feels that being inside of a sustainable office has motivated himself and some of his co-workers to act more sustainably outside of work. This is a great by product of a sustainable building and I believe that this effect will be multiplied as more sustainable buildings are introduced to the public.
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