sustainability news
Wind turbines not passed
Robert Rockefeller’s plans to mount giant wind turbines to catch the Southerly blusters from his Hobart buildings have been furled in by the council on heritage grounds. The debate was “heated”, possibly by a coal-fired power station.
28.07.09 in sustainability heritage
Comment [1]
Plumin awful
The Infrastructurist mentioned a study done recently by UCLA. All had thought that the pollution effect of a freeway extended to about 300 metres downwind. Not so, pollutants spread up to 2.6 kilometres downwind, that’s a vulnerable 5.2 km belt along all our freeways. This is what it looks like for Melbourne:
10.07.09 in sustainability cities
Sore thumb building grabs wind
Hobart’s 11 storey Marine Board building, standing unloved in a prime position on Franklin Wharf, may be blessed with a set of 11m wind turbines. Resembling overgrown mobile power towers? Owner Robert Rockefeller, recent president of the Property Council in Tasmania, also wants to add wind to the ANZ building in Elizabeth Street.
20.06.09 in sustainability
Split that McMansion
Sydney crew Reincarnated McMansion aim to take one willing McMansion to pieces and reassemble it into “two best practice, zero emissions green homes”. Best of luck.
19.06.09 in sustainability
green roofs
This one slipped past the radar. A competition (now closed – hopefully someone saw it) for the green roof designs for three existing Melbourne buildings. It has been organised by the mysterious Committee of Melbourne, and there was an article in The Age, buried in the business section.
02.05.09 in sustainability competitions
First Rate 4 kaput
For those many architects able to assess energy efficiency with First Rate version 4, your licence expires tomorrow. It’s 5 or nowt now. Seems they are trying to reduce the number of assessors by making everything expensive – like the required training course. One more external consultant to add to the list?
29.04.09 in sustainability practice
Architecture, Hot and Cold
A detailed technological review of Melbourne’s 6 star Council House 2 (CH2), designed by the City of Melbourne in house Architectural design team in Association with Designinc and Mick Pearce.
14.02.08 in reviews sustainability
Architect / protaganist:
Eco Archi
The New York Times Magazine’s glossy Sunday Supplement is devoted to “Ecotecture”. Amidst articles on Shigeru Ban, and Diller Scofidio & Renfro and the mayor of Curitiba, the magazine has one billed “In near isolation in Australia, Glenn Murcutt is designing houses that reimagine the woolshed.” You could think there was no one else designing here from that sentence. In the four page interview, Glenn says, “On sustainable architecture: “Most of it is bloody awful. Much of it isn’t architecture, and some of it isn’t sustainable.”
22.05.07 in sustainability