Council House Two (CH2) is the first project in Australia to achieve a six Green Star certified rating.
Council House Two (CH2) - from design to reality
Source: City of Melbourne website
Contents
Summary
The first project in Australia to achieve a six Green Star certified rating - world leader in green design. CH2 is a 10 storey office building (Gross Floor Area of 12 536 m2 and Net Lettable Area of 9373m2) in 218-242 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, officially opened in 2006. Total building cost of $51 million - $29.9 million for the base building, $11.3 million for sustainability features - which Melbourne City Council estimate have about a 10 year payback. This does not include the health and productivity benefits, which if demonstrated, would support a compelling business case. It is estimated that the improved air quality of systems like those used in CH2 could achieve a 4.9% increase in productivity, in part through reduced sick leave. The building process and performance are well documented and serve as an exemplar. Early results show reduced absenteeism and increased worker productivity.
Address: 200 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Owner: Project Management & Design, City of Melbourne
Design: Advanced Environmental Concepts, Lincolne Scott, DesignInc
Construction: Hansen Yuncken
Council House 2 Facts and Figures, Accessed 25 May 2007 http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/
Checklist of sustainable features
Energy
Indoor Environmental Quality
Productivity
Water
Waste
Materials
Transport
Building Rating: Six GreenStar certified rating
Motivations and lessons
The owner's view - An interview with Professor Rob Adams (Director, City Design, City of Melbourne)
28 May 2007
What are the main reasons why your company chose to do a sustainable building?
In the late 90s Melbourne City Council decided to go to zero emissions by 2020. When we looked at the way to achieve this, one of the biggest contributors to emissions were commercial office buildings. One of the most effective ways to target and communicate this was to design and occupy a sustainable commercial building ourselves.
We had a site that had been held for about 70 years and when we ran through the investment potential of a sustainable building it turned out to be a very good investment. Not simply for the obvious reasons of energy or water costs but more significantly, productivity and health costs of our staff.
Similar to the first reason - if you want to start a change agenda then one of the best ways is to lead by example from government. In the 90s when we wanted to get people to live in the city we converted a number of buildings to apartments. We wanted to use CH2 as a pilot study to lead the change to sustainable commercial buildings.
What are the best things that have come out of doing a sustainable building?
We have only been up and running a short period, but already we're showing that staff absenteeism and productivity has improved. In any organisation if you can make people healthy and happy there is a huge savings potential.
Reducing long term running costs - and as a long term sustainable investment
To try and show the industry the direction to take - we purposely targeted the tenants of future buildings, not developers, so they start demanding the type of building that they want for the future. I think it's fair to say the market has moved from 4 to 5 star buildings. In the not too distant future it will be 6 star buildings. By targeting the tenants and showing the benefits to productivity and health it helps turn development requirements around.
What are the things that you did that made the project work well?
We made a straight business case that convinced the business people to use the investment fund for the building.
We designed a building that was advanced but people are not fearful of it and it's not a one off. The question from the Chief Executive was: What happens if it all doesn't work? Most of what is done is basic common sense. For example, in the climate for Melbourne, opening windows at night to cool the building saves 20% energy. Using water is the most efficient way to heat and cool building. We designed a building that makes sense and people are surprised when they visit how simple it is.
The third thing is to be absolutely open all the way along with our data and all the successes and mistakes so as to demystify the process. We are not protective of the information and as a government accountable body seekto provide information and gain support from industry.
What were the things that didn't work quite so well and how were they managed?
There was a short term hitch with the water mining plant in the basement. I think I'm right in saying it's only the second of its type in Australia, the first was a prototype trialled in Flemington. The problem was that when used in the city the amount of tissue paper caused the filters to block. This was easily fixed by installing a second filter.
The air turbines didn't work as well as hoped. In the unusual wind conditions in the city, not all work at the same time. In hindsight they're not contributing as much as thought. But they were used as a trial and not relied upon. The building was designed so that the air moves through well anyway and we don't rely on the turbines.
The lighting levels in the office were set at a generally low light level 150 lux and were designed for open office. With some of the occupants insisting on partitions and the dark ceilings, we had to supplement the lighting.. The lower general lighting levels created a more relaxed and intimate atmosphere with pools of lighting from task lamps. The general lighting was increased to the standard 150 lux as people working on drawing need the higher lighting, but it can be adjusted and the lower lighting seems adequate for people working on computers.
Other information and resources on CH2
Multimedia
ABC Catalyst 19 April 2007
Council House Two - the eco office block of the future (7:30mins: Windows media. Real Player)
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1901482.htm
Detailed reports and ongoing information
City of Melbourne Website
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=171&pg=1933
Quotes
"I funnily enough spent a lot of time studying termite nests and the reason for that is that they're very much cleverer than we are at manipulating the natural environment. These great mounds that they build in nature, aren't like the castles we build to show off, they're actually lungs. The purpose of them is to extend the organism. The organism is the whole termitery ... and the termites are in fact like blood moving around in it. So they build these mounds and they breathe. They actually allow transference of air, and/or gases through a membrane, which is porous and you can study it from the point of view of diffusion of gases. There's quite a lot of science that we've done that would apply to a termitery.'
"So instead of being an enormous glazed façade that, as I said before, wards off nature, is pristine. It's actually made of something that weathers ... that nature paints if you like. Like old timber. So it can go grey, slowly and age. I am against this kind of eternal youth syndrome many buildings have. I like to see them age and so it also moves with the sun. So there's a responsive façade. That's the big message."
(Interview with Mick Pearce, Principal Design Architect, City of Melbourne, CH2 Design Team, 2004)
Source: Radovic, D., Crist, G. Technical Research Paper 01, Nature and Aesthetics in the Sustainable City City of Melbourne http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/rsrc/PDFs/CH2/Research1.pdf
Images
Other case studies or fact sheets
Green Building Council of Australia
http://www.gbcaus.org/download.asp?file=%5CDocuments%5CGBCA%5FCh2%5Ffactsheet2%2Epdf
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