Talking Buildings
City of Gosnells Administration Building uses Greensense View (5-Star rating)
A Green Building is a sustainable one. A building that enhances the natural environment and our well being; that does not diminish it.
Green Buildings are designed to be sustainable, and it is well recognised that the design and planning must encompass the total lifecycle of the building.
We know that no matter how sustainable a building may have been in its design and construction, it can only remain so if it is operated responsibly and maintained properly, and, if those who visit and occupy the building are engaged and informed as willing collaborators in creating a sustainable outcome.
Green rating schemes recognise this fact, awarding points for occupant education and engagement. We know that you can’t create a smart, green building with uninformed and unengaged occupants. But do we actually know how to effectively inform and engage?
Our vision at Greensense is that buildings should talk to their occupants, that they should engage them in a conversation about sustainability, that the ‘heartbeat’ of the building should be loud enough for everyone to hear.
On a hot day, when the building is working hard to keep people comfortable, they should know. The building should be able to remind people to use the stairs, applaud them when they recycle more, and let them know when performance is off kilter (Hey, last night I used more electricity than normal, what’s going on?).
In a really smart building, the occupants should be engaged to maximise the buildings performance, for example, letting you know the sea breeze is coming in and its time to open the windows, or that tomorrow is going to be really hot, so make sure you dress for the weather so I can keep the inside and outside temperature more in balance.
The building should be able to engage occupants in friendly competition. Lets have a challenge to see which floor can save the most electricity this month. Remember to switch off your computers at night, I’ll be watching!
Lastly, the building, should share its performance data with others. Buildings exist within a common local environment, they exist within a commercial context, usually as part of a portfolio under common management, or owned by a common group. While rating schemes like NABERS provide a degree of comparability between buildings, more timely, higher resolution and more contextual data is much more powerful in identifying opportunities and anomalies and enabling richer more informative benchmarks.
If you’re in the business of creating sustainable buildings, we’d love to talk. We’ve been doing this for a while now, so get in contact, and we can help you build a rich and fulfilling relationship between your buildings and their occupants.
Greensense View will be a key feature of the new SA4 student accommodation for ANU
Tags: Architecture, ESD
