SUSTAINABILITY REVIEW

WE CAN DO A SUSTAINABILITY REVIEW OF ANY DESIGN WORK

We appreciate that you may have chosen another design practice or designer/builder to do your design work, for lots of good reasons, and yet you want to make sure it can be as sustainable and future-proof as possible. It may be that you want to mix the skills of two preferred experts, or perhaps your designer does not feel they are at the leading edge of this specialty. Or maybe you just want a second opinion.

This will help future-proof your investment, as regulation and market expectation moves to 6 Stars and beyond, energy costs continue to rise, and mandatory disclosure* comes in.

Using a teamwork approach, we work with your architect or designer to bring the best possible outcome in…
thermal performance and passive design
low operational energy and efficiency
water efficiency
waste water treatment and reuse
indoor air quality and zero-toxicity
low embodied energy
minimised off-site and production impacts.

We can review any or all of the following:
basic design concept, looking at:
orientation on the site
floor plan
location of thermal mass
detailed design elements, looking at:
window & glazing design
ventilation
shading design
insulation
the specification.

We can do the thermal performance modeling for BASIX (in NSW) and the BCA/NCC (in all other states).

Our input will be guided by your budget, and the relationship you have with your designer, and builder. In this way we will make different recommendations for project builders than we make with custom builders, because they operate in different ways and within different budget constraints. We can add further value by preparing all or part of your Specification.

In the past we worked with the full spectrum of designers: volume builders big and small, including Clarendon Homes and Mirvac, as well as architects and building designers. Each project has its own unique constraints, and we work within these to optimise the very best result possible. We believe – and are told by our clients – that we add value to the result way beyond the nominal extra cost.

Call or email to discuss what we can do for you and your project.

*mandatory disclosure
There is a national framework for all states and territories to introduce mandatory disclosure of thermal performance at point of sale. This has been on the agenda at CoAG (Council of Australian Governments, instigated by a range of state governments) for some years. The ACT introduced it in 1997, and Qld introduced it in 2011. Other states are following close behind.

Future-proofing: it is part of the groundswell of change to more sustainable buildings that has begun to transform the housing market, which will accelerate in the next 5 to 10 years. You are well advised to make your big investment ready for that change, or it will be devalued by the market, as has happened to poorly rated houses in the ACT: a 1.5 star house is 15% lower valued than an otherwise equivalent 5 star house, and takes 6 weeks longer to sell (REIACT, 2009).