GLE 04 JOURNAL
RESILIENCE GREEN CROSS AUSTRALIA GREENBOX ARCHITECTURE KAUNITZ YEUNG ARCHITECTURE LAVA QUEENSLAND KIDS GREEN LEAF ENGINEERS
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EDITORIAL BUILDING FOR 21ST CENTURY REALITIES
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It’s not that we’re fiddling, but this summer bushfires raged across Southern Australia. Record heatwaves flashed across our T V stations, followed by severe storms which descended from Central Queensland right down to New South Wales, following the tail end of ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald and an associated monsoon trough.
Editorial Rob Dickie robd@greenleafengineers.com Publishing Co-ordinator Valerie Stoelen valeries@greenleafengineers.com
“Planet Ear th is warming up”, we were reminded, in a seminal essay authored by five Bureau of Meteorology exper ts published in The Conversation. “Future warming of the climate due to greenhouse gas emissions will,” according to BoM, “ver y likely lead to fur ther increases in the frequency of unusually hot days and nights and continued declines in unusually cold days and nights. Climate model projections indicate that the frequency of many dif ferent types of extreme weather will change as the planet warms”.
For GLE GLE04 is distributed solely through the Property Australia Magazine, published by the Property Council of Australia limited ABN 13008 474 422 Additional hard copies are exclusively provided to contributors.
While Australia grapples with the politics of climate change and uncer tain policy responses, the International Energy Agency points to a now likely 6 degree increase in warming over the 21st Centur y. This scenario is largely an extension of current trends. Achieving even a four degree temperature rise in the longer term is already an ambitious scenario according to IEA, since it requires governments to implement existing commitments fully and introduce a new round of additional emission cuts af ter 2050.
The opinions expressed in editorial material do not necessarily represent the views of Green Leaf Engineers Pty Ltd or the GLE Journal. Unless specifically stated, goods or services mentioned in articles are not formally endorsed by the GLE Journal, which does not accept any liability for goods or services featured in this publication.
Just as ef for ts to shif t our energy mix towards renewable sources are vital, we must also confront the reality of how we prepare our communities and vital infrastructure for sea level rise, more prolonged and intense heat waves, and more intense if not more frequent severe weather events.
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We need to cultivate new design factors and models of self-reliance to address these risks. Our responses of fer oppor tunities as well. Designers, engineers, developers and proper ty owners who recognise the value of durability and climate responsive approaches to new and retrofitted built infrastructure will nur ture development of invaluable 21st centur y intellectual proper ty. By advancing commercialisation of resilient, adaptive approaches to urban and community development, Australian business has the oppor tunity to play a leadership role as we confront and respond to the realities of a warming world. The trouble with buildings and homes today is that they are designed to address yesterday’s challenges. We now need to open the agenda of how we approach sustainable development of our cities and regions with foresight. Green Building Council of Australia’s new Green Star Communities’ resilience focus is a great place to star t. And with each major weather event we can rebuild to a better, stronger and more resilient standard to equip Australia for what now inevitably lies ahead.
Mara is the CEO of Green Cross Ausralia, an organisation helping people adapt to the changing climate.
Mara Bun [GREEN CROSS AUSTRALIA
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Mara Bun
Andrew Owens
[GREEN CROSS AUSTRALIA]
[GREENBOX ARCHITECTURE]
Mara was born and raised in Brazil and studied and worked in the US before moving to Australia in 1991. She brings 20 years of community and business experience to Green Cross Australia.
As the owner and director of Greenbox Architecture, Andrew leads a team of architects and designers working on a diverse range of projects covering commercial office, industrial, multi unit residential, commercial fitout and data centres. Andrew’s skill set covers concept design, strategic planning advice, design management, co-ordination of other consultants in complex facilities, negotiation of planning approvals, Land and Environment Count Appeals and Client relations.
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Between 2002 and 2006 Mara combined her commercial and community interests in her role as Director of Business Development for the CSIRO, where she helped to shape science funding partnerships involving government, academic and corporate interests. After moving from Sydney to the Gold Coast hinterland in 2006 Mara became Head of Research at CANNEX, Australia’s leading consumer finance research firm before joining Green Cross Australia as founding CEO in late 2007.
[Empowerment and Resilient Design]
Andrew has worked extensively in the data centre environment since on projects including Optus/Singtel, Macquarie Telecom, IBC Homebush, IBM, Fujitsu, Digital Realty Trust and NextDC throughout Australia and New Zealand.
[Resilience and the High Rise Tower of the Future]
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David Kaunitz
Chris Bosse
[KAUNITZ YEUNG ARCHITECTURE]
[LAVA]
David is an Australian Registered Architect and a British Chartered Architect with 10+ years senior level experience including as Director of various architectural companies. David began private practice in 2006 enabling his continued delivery of best practice architecture while combining his pursuit of community development in the developing world. The rigours of community consultation, collaboration and the challenges of working in remote areas has enabled an increased depth to the work of Kaunitz Yeung Architecture.
Chris is director of LAVA Asia Pacific based in Sydney, Australia, and Tobias Wallisser and Alexander Rieck are co-directors of the European division of LAVA, based in Stuttgart, Germany. Chris Bosse is Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney.
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Educated in Germany and Switzerland, he worked with several high-profile European architects before moving to Sydney. Whilst Associate Architect at PTW Architects in Sydney he completed many projects in Asia and the Middle East. His work on the Watercube Olympic swimming centre in Beijing received the Atmosphere Award at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale; and he won an Emerging Architect Award from RIBA in 2008 London and a 40 Under 40 Award in 2012.
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Paul & Gabrielle Quilliam [QUEENSLAND KIDS Paul and Gabrielle are the cofounders of Queensland Kids: a charity with the vision of creating an innovative and sustainable children’s respite and hospice facility addressing a significant gap in Queensland’s paediatric health landscape. By establishing Hummingbird House, Queensland Kids will deliver a supportive home away from home in Queensland for families impacted by a child’s terminal illness. With children’s hospices only operating in Sydney and Melbourne, Paul and Gabrielle have been working with key stakeholders over the last two years to ensure Queensland families are the direct beneficiaries of similar services in Queensland. Hummingbird House will be the third children’s hospice in Australia.
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14 Rob Horwood
[GREEN LEAF ENGINEERS] Rob comes to the building services industry with a strong background in R&D, having worked as a project engineer & research officer in the Mechanical Engineering Dept at the University of Queensland for 7 years. Rob has a passion for environmentally sustainable design (ESD), and believes strongly in the need for increased & early consultation between architect and engineer during the design process to minimise the energy requirements of buildings and houses. He has experience in energy efficiency reporting for building certification, pre-DA sustainable design reporting processes, thermal modelling, and providing fabric & design advice to the architect to achieve the best possible energy performance.
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04 RESILIENCE, ARCHITECTURE AND THE CLOUD Sustainability, Green Star, LEED, Nabers.. It seems that this is all we hear about. Has architecture missed the bigger picture? And what about resilience? Can architecture be both sustainable and resilient? Redundancy, continuity, robust, sustainable and reliable are words frequently heard in the conversations we have, workshops and conferences we attend, and during the design process of data centers. They all contribute in various ways and with differing weightings to the successful outcome of a project. Once the design is completed and the building constructed the conventional belief is that, data centre infrastructure is a bit of machinery that with regular maintenance and care will continue to operate, and perhaps like our own car, be replaced at the end of its effective life. When a major power outage occurs and the data centre is able to continue to function the design team feels that the job was well done. The machine worked, the redundancy in the system was there, the generators fired up, the
fuel pumps worked, life moved on and back to work we went. However, there is another element to consider: Resilience. Resilience is the ability to maintain a sustainable system even in a changing environment. The factors that generally determine the resilience of a system come from four categories of change: Ecological / Physical / Social / Time. As the world changes, technological and cultural innovations move at a greater pace than natural evolution. To attain resiliency, there is a need to fully understand the critical components of a system and what the likelihood for change will be. The challenge for architects of resilient design is to accommodate change in traditionally static structures.
Needs of tenants change, societal demands and expectations grow, community developments and attitudes are refocused, government policy is amended, crisis response increases environmental awareness, and climatic change brings impacts that will need to be dealt with. These are elements architects need to understand will have an impact now and into the future. Resilience is controversial; it is about survival and inherently asks the tough question. If a structure is sustainable today will it still be sustainable in 10 years time? Sustainability in architecture is about reducing a building’s environmental impact now, it does not necessarily address how it will respond to the impact of the environment tomorrow. Resilient buildings don’t just sustain the required functionally
Resilient buildings don’t just sustain the required functionally but evolve alongside it - a symbiosis of structural function, operational needs and style.
but evolve alongside it - a symbiosis of structural function, operational needs and style. We should design our buildings to accommodate change, to be able to remove walls without significant impact on the structure, to reconfigure space as needs change, and to remove and replace electrical and mechanical infrastructure as technology delivers new solutions. We need to position essential service plant not by building it in to the depths of the building, but by positioning it to allow replacement as new technologies evolve. We can see this in the latest date centres we have designed; mechanical plant located on open roof decks that can be easily replaced, generators located externally, interior walls that are demountable to allow future reconfiguration of spaces,
standardized kits of parts of construction to facilitate change, modularized and prefabricated building elements providing flexibility of staged construction and de-construction, as well as high floor to floor levels to accommodate future unknown space and infrastructure needs. We need to make our buildings responsive to change not resistive to it. We need to allow our buildings
to change and grow over time, this is the sign of a resilient building, one that moves beyond sustainability and looks to the future without fear but with optimism and confidence. We cannot predict what the future will deliver but we can be ready for the challenge. Where sustainability aims to put the world back in balance, resilience looks for ways to manage in an imbalanced world.
Andrew Owens is the director of Greenbox Architecture who have designed in excess of 80,000sqm of technical data centre space
Andrew Owens [GREENBOX ARCHITECTURE] GLE 04 | RESILIENCE | Page 05
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06 EMPOWERMENT & RESILIENT DESIGN
In 2007 I found myself in the remote Solomon Islands assessing damage, running build better training workshops and planning village reconstruction following a large earthquake and tsunami. It seems an odd place for an architect, particularly one who was fresh from a stint in London working on large retail, transport and residential projects, including the Olympic Village. One rationale is that architects are well placed to map existing vernacular and why it failed, plan for reconstruction and in effect plan a sustainable path to recovery that provides resilience for the next inevitable disaster. This however is only part of the rationale. Throughout that period, on a Monday morning before I would head out to that week’s group of villages I would be in the office early only to find a queue outside the door. Those waiting were eager to each receive an individually designed leaf hut and a timber cutting list to match. After many weeks of assessing local vernacular, conversing with village carpenters and building a little, the standard leaf hut design was born. A mash-up of engineering, architecture, local building practices, available materials and disaster mitigation strategies culminating in a simple resilient design. From that moment it has been clear to me that design resilience can only be achieved through empowering the people that use
From that moment it has been clear to me that design resilience can only be achieved through empowering the people that use and own buildings. and own buildings. This is as true in our society as it is in the remotest parts of the world. The difference is only in how this manifests itself. This is further seen in a recently completed exemplar classroom building for The Ministry of Education, Republic of Vanuatu supported by AusAID, NZ DFAT and UNICEF. The design was based around a simple timber portal frame that reflected local building practices, vernacular, and international standards. As infill to this, we facilitated the building’s community customisation through local available materials. For the
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exemplar, this was dead coral stone that the community builders carefully placed to the infill walls. Natangkura (leaf) was used for roofing and woven bamboo for window hatches. The resilience of the design need only to be limited to the main structure, which is easier for centralised government to manage. The rest of the building relies on the resilience of the community who are able to use those same local materials to repair any post disaster damage, limiting the reliance on centralised assistance.
The result is a design that is seventy percent cheaper than the existing concrete model, using ninety percent local materials. This approach has the added benefit of putting more donor money into the community through the buying of local materials and paying of labour. This money in turn can be spent on educating children and upgrading housing, supporting a broader resilience. Currently on the drawing board is an indigenous health clinic in the remote desert of Western Australia for Ngaanyatjarra Indigenous Health Service. This project is a great oportunity to fuse our extensive health experience with our comunity development approach. The national health regulations make this a more restrictive medium, however, this makes our approach even more important. We
have
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connecting with the community, drawing in the dirt, and having fun with school kids designing their ideal clinic. This is the community approach that requires time and listening and inevitably provides opportunities for more literal community engagement. The rewards are insights into culture and place that inform the design subtly. One simple example will be the community paving making workshops we will run later this
year. Everyone in the community will have the chance to make a piece of the building, a small gesture but larger than has ever happened before. This approach has been used to produce unique, innovative residential, retail, commercial, health and education architecture that avoids a particular aesthetic to ensure projects are tailored to each client, context and budget. It effectively proves that community engagement and local building supplies enable resilient design to thrive in Australia, as well as remote parts of the world.
Kaunitz Yeung Architecture David Kaunitz is a Director of Kaunitz Yeung Architecture and recent recipient of a DARCH Horse Award.
David Kaunitz [KAUNITZ YEUNG ARCHITECTURE]
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Resilience and the High Rise Tower of the Future I recently visited Chicago, the hometown of the skyscraper. What a great invention at the time. The application of new construction techniques developed over decades, the availability of electricity, of steel, later prestressed concrete, the invention of
elevators, air conditioning and the tinted glazed curtain wall facade, meant buildings could now be built in a completely new manner. They were taller, stronger, quicker to erect, with bigger floor plates that could be lit well into the interior, could operate day and night,
and have the same temperature winter and summer. All the ‘risks’ of external environmental factors such as sunshine, rain, humidity, cold and heat as well as noise and pollution, could seemingly be eliminated.
The lifespan of architecture is at the same time its advantage and its downfall: buildings are built to last forever! The prototype of the (American) city has proliferated across the globe from South America to Europe, from the Middle East to Asia to Australia and is largely unchanged since its inception. The only problem is: Society has changed. The computer has now replaced most other forms of workplaces. The smart phone creates new genres such as social networking, Twitter, Facebook etc. Not to mention the internet which has replaced telephone lines, fax machines, and telegrams altogether. In short, the way we live and work and communicate has radically transformed: yet the architecture around us is still the same and is widely based on old and tired technology. The challenge of course is it takes at least five years to take a large project from design to construction. In the meantime your telephone was redesigned five times, your computer has been written off twice, and chances are that your job description has been re-written three times. Apart from that, a lot of the buildings from that early generation have been proven to make us physically and mentally sick (sick building syndrome). Our needs have changed and today we want fresh air, access to natural light, an active lifestyle, the flexibility to re-organise our team structure regularly, easy communication within the office, pleasant breakout spaces, natural materials around us and we want to be immersed in nature as much as possible. Therefore the challenge is, how do we: A) Revamp existing buildings, designed by our fathers and grandfathers (and mothers) without having to pull them down and waste all the money and energy invested in them in the first place.
The building of the future will be like nature itself, like a forest, or a coral reef. Or like a cocoon, the symbol for change and transition from now to the future, the transition from one state to another, from lar vae to a butterfly. B) Design buildings that are open, versatile, adaptable and reactive to external forces, contemporary times and changing needs. This is certainly a question that the entire world is asking as evidenced by awards such as the Zerofootprint Re-Skinning Awards or worldwide symposiums about Retrofitting of the City. One approach, certainly not the only one, is this: the idea of ‘reskinning’, which LAVA proposed for the Goulburn Street carpark and the UTS tower in Sydney. It involves a new high-tech, lightweight-material to transform these outdated buildings. Like a skin of a snake addresses changing times or a spacesuit suits a new type of environment, the new skin addresses contemporary needs for flexibility, light, air and views as well as new ‘esthetics’. A new skin can react to the environment, to temperature, humidity and air pressure, and can have embedded layers of technology and sustainability, saving water, producing energy and communicating information to occupants inside the building as well as to the outside world.
n return, the base buildings of the future have to be robust and flexible, technology has to be accessible and interchangeable, services cables and shafts have to be retractable and serviceable. Building components have to be recyclable, interchangeable, and whenever a new “update” looms, able to be implemented in real time. At the end of their lifetime, the components get recycled. Interiors have to be light and airy, friendly and comfortable, allow for current activities and adapt for functions that may be required in the future. The building of the future will be like nature itself, like a forest, or a coral reef. Or like a cocoon, the symbol for change and transition from now to the future, the transition from one state to another, from larvae to a butterfly. If the past century was about standardization and mass production, the 21st century is about mass-customization, individual expression, health and wellbeing, being able to accommodate constantly changing needs into a constantly updateable architecture.
Chris Bosse is a Founding Director of LAVA.
Chris Bosse [LAVA] GLE 04 | RESILIENCE | Page 11
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12 Designed to Make a Difference Robert Jordan in The Fires of Heaven paints a wonderful picture of resilience - “the oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived”. This picture suggests a dynamic relationship of reciprocity between resilience and flexibility. The ability to bend and flex when engulfed by a storm, could mean the difference between endurance and destruction. While there is an unspoken expectation for a building to be able to weather an onslaught of nature that is unexpected,
fierce and sometimes cruel, what happens when we as humans are faced with a destructive force of nature that is beyond our control? Whether a building or human being is confronted by catastrophe, there is one defining characteristic of resilience that seems to be consistent – resilience is evident when we are confronted with significant trauma and stress. Resilience is hard to assess when things are going well and easy to measure it when we experience
things we wish hadn’t happened. Resilience determines how quickly we get back to our “steady state” after the air has been knocked out of us, when we must push through life circumstances that challenge our very being. But how does a parent find their ‘steady state’ after being told their child will die from an incurable disease? How does a mother push through the challenge of wondering which breath will be her child’s last? How does a family ‘bend without breaking’ when both parents provide 24 hour care for their dying child while still working and looking after other siblings? These are the challenges faced by approximately 3,700 Queensland children and their families affected by life limiting conditions. Queensland Kids is an incorporated charity founded to support these children and their families. Our vision is to build ‘Hummingbird House’, the only specialised respite and hospice facility in Queensland for families impacted by a child’s life limiting illness. The establishment of Hummingbird House will provide a home away from home option where families can access respite and end of life care when home or hospital care can no longer meet their needs. Take a moment to imagine the unthinkable your child is dying. As a parent, your instinctive reaction is to fight for your child’s survival; to resist destruction and defend this precious life until the very end. But when medical science and a devastating diagnosis confirm that defeat is inevitable, your next best hope is to maintain your child’s life for as long as possible to squeeze every ounce of living from every moment available to you. For the children and their families faced with this tragic reality, they must find a balance between resistance
Resilience determines how quickly we get back to our “steady state” after the air has been knocked out of us. and resilience; the fine line between the bending and the breaking; the hope that human resilience will provide them with moments of joy and profound connection in the midst of their natural resistance as they fight a losing battle. When a family is grounded in the stark reality of a life limiting diagnosis, their daily life revolves around countless therapies, medications, surgical interventions, hospital visits, social and emotional isolation and the ever present grieving for what should or could have been. Yet they must still find ways to live ‘well’ within the confines of the diagnosis. This is when a place like Hummingbird House will help foster their resilience and help them find their ‘steady state’. Within a respite and hospice facility like Hummingbird House, the sick child is cared for by trained medical staff while their parents and siblings are given the opportunity to have a much needed break. The family will have the time and space to rest, and reconnect with each other and do things they could not normally do due to the
care restrictions of the dying child. Hummingbird House will become a place of connection and understanding. Families will find a community that understands the critical care needs of their sick child while also understanding the complex layers of pressures that can engulf a parent, a sibling, a grandparent or close friend affected by the child’s diagnosis. And all the while, Hummingbird House will focus on enhancing the quality of life for the child until the end of their life and provide bereavement support to those
affected. The care and connection provided through Hummingbird House will be an active and total approach to care, embracing physical, emotional social and spiritual elements. Hummingbird House will be home away from home with a resilient form that echoes the resilience it nurtures and finds within its occupants. It will be a dynamic facility that provides a safe place where resistance melds into resilience and creates beauty out of devastation, where ordinary people achieve extraordinary things in the face of immeasurable loss.
Paul and Gabrielle Quilliam are cofounders of Queensland Kids.
Paul and Gabrielle Quilliam [QUEENSLAND KIDS] GLE 04 | RESILIENCE | Page 13
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14 New Buildings in an Old World While sustainability has been a buzz word in the building industry for many years, there is a recent and increasing trend towards resilience in design – the ability to withstand or rebound from changing climatic conditions. The interesting thing about this movement is that it is not led by legislative building codes, it is being led by insurance companies and the crippling premiums they are now dictating for a building’s in flood prone areas for example. I would argue that there is another practical and emerging need for resilience in building design - the design of buildings in developing nations. That is, designing buildings
that can be constructed by the local workforce, and are made to withstand the effect of neglect and poor standards of maintenance, both of which are common outside of the developed world. Many developing countries are rich in natural resources, and as large multi-national companies move in to exploit these vast sources of wealth, there is typically an accompanying injection of investment in commercial and residential building stock. The problem for designers and building owners alike is in ensuring that the building is able to be built and maintained by the local work force. It’s all very well to design the
most technological and efficient building possible, but this is of very little use if the building cannot be maintained, let alone built and commissioned. Green Leaf Engineers adopt a pragmatic approach to building services design in developing nations we design buildings that are resilient not only against the weather effects faced by a changing climate, but are resilient against skilled maintenance costs and increases in future energy and water prices. Green Leaf Engineers have recently been involved in the design of services for the new
It is an engineer’s responsibility to take a complicated solution and make it simple to construct, cost effective to maintain or replace and resilient against future changes in climate. Ministry of Finance & Treasury building in Honiara, Solomon Islands. The building is a critical piece of government infrastructure that cannot afford to fall victim to a lack of maintenance and poor local building expertise suffered by similar developments in the region. Honiara experiences an intermittent electricity supply, and so a redundant back-up generator was installed to supplement an existing on-site generator and mains supply. Gas-powered variable refrigerant flow (VRF) air-conditioning was specified to reduce peak power demand and ongoing energy costs – this was only done after care was taken to ensure the technology was appropriate for Honiara. The gas A /C supplier was able to provide examples of similar technology being locally installed, and the details of local technicians that have been trained by the Japanese manufacturer on the correct installation and maintenance techniques. It is an engineer’s responsibility to take a complicated solution and make it simple to construct, cost effective to maintain or replace and resilient against future changes in climate. But to do this you have to return to the old principles of passive first, then active systems, then renewable systems. Following this mantra requires the engineer and the architect to work a lot harder, thinking holistically through the passive design features than is currently allowed for in fee structures or project time frames. Consider the image to your right; which building in Honiara, Solomon Islands is more resilient? The concrete framed building that has been designed to absorb severe earthquakes, cyclones localised flooding etc or the basic structure in the foreground that the knowledge and the materials to replace the structure are abundant.
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Rob Horwood is a design engineer at Green Leaf Engineers.
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Kaunitz Yeung Architecture
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