The Pixel building proves to be Australia’s greenest building
Melbourne’s new Pixel building, the first carbon neutral office building in Australia, has achieved the highest Green Star score ever awarded by the Green Building Council of Australia.
Pixel achieved a perfect score of 100 points under the Green Star rating system for building design, whereas 75 points is the benchmark for 6 Star Green Star. Pixel gained an extra five points for innovation, which puts them at the top of world’s best practice. Included in Pixel’s five innovation points were points for carbon neutrality, a vacuum toilet system, the anaerobic digestion system and reduced car parking. The water initiatives in the project mean the building could be self sufficient for water – in this context, the project is water balanced as well as carbon neutral.
The designers of Pixel are all Victorian firms: architects studio505; sustainability and services engineers Umow Lai; and the structural engineer VDM Consulting.
The building features a new type of concrete which halves the carbon in the mix. Melbourne University designed the ‘living roof’ which re-introduces Victorian grassland species to the Melbourne area, and includes tracking photovoltaic roof panels. The multi-coloured sun shade system on the exterior of the building will provide the maximum amount of daylight into the office space, protecting it from glare and heat in the summer. While smart window technology ensures windows will open automatically on cool nights to enable air flow into the building. Electricity is generated by roof-mounted wind turbines, designed in Bendigo.
To learn more about the Pixel building, visit their website.
Now that we have shown the world how it is done, let’s hope we start converting existing buildings.
Yours in sustainability,
Richard
