A new 1,000sqm office building 69 Robertson Street’s in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley quietly beat the field to receive the first Green Star Design and As Built v1.1 certified rating.
Remarkably the project team did this by achieving the highest possible rating of 6 stars, representing world leadership in sustainable design and construction.
Floth Sustainable Building Consultants, an independent Australian specialist engineering firm, developed and occupy the three level office building. They undertook the building services engineering and Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) and moved into the upper two levels in August.
The constrained zero lot line building includes green trellis walls with drought tolerant climbing vines growing up the external faces of the central light well and rear decks. While the planting has been carefully selected to thrive without additional irrigation, roof rainwater is still being collected for green wall establishment and for toilet and urinal flushing.
The new office building is fitted with the latest occupancy- and daylight- controlled direct- indirect LED lighting systems. Heat recovery variable refrigerant flow air conditioning systems are literally able to move heating or cooling from one part of the building to another as required. High indoor air quality is assured with a 50 percent increase in outside air being delivered to occupants via variable air volume systems that are demand controlled in response to zoned carbon dioxide sensors.
Glenn Ralph, Floth’s Managing Director, is elated with the achievement. “When we were originally designing the building, the Green Star Design and As Built rating system didn’t exist and we were working to Green Star Office v3. As the project commenced construction, we were able to test the design and to upgrade to the new rating system once we knew we could achieve our goals. We are certainly pleased with the outcome, which goes one up on our previous achievements of designing the first 6 star Green Star Office v2 As Built rated building in Queensland (Green Square North Tower) and the first 6 star Green Star Office v3 Design rated building in Queensland (180 Brisbane).”
Anthony Marklund, Floth’s ESD Principal said, “We have leap-frogged the few other buildings in Australia that have undertaken Design Reviews to achieve the first complete Green Star Design & As Built version 1.1 certified rating. I am particularly proud of the 83.3 point round one result and the fact that we actually had to surrender an awarded innovation in order to fit within the maximum of ten allowable innovation credits.”
“Beyond Green star, the building meets the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council’s (ASBEC) zero carbon building standard. A 53 per cent reduction in operational carbon emissions is predicted from facade and integral building services improvements (compared to an equivalent Building Code compliant energy model). A roof-mounted solar photovoltaic system achieves a further 13 per cent reduction, also equivalent to offsetting 28 percent of the building’s final operational energy.
100 per cent accredited GreenPower purchased from Origin is the final piece of the zero carbon puzzle. Over the base building, both Floth’s and the eventual Level 1 tenant’s fitouts will effectively be zero carbon in operation by virtue of the 100 per cent GreenPower supply. Notably the free electricity generated by the solar photovoltaic system will more than offset the additional operational cost of the GreenPower. Given the cost effectiveness of the building, it would be difficult to come up with a better solution.”
Level 1 of 69 Robertson Street, Fortitude Valley is a fully fitted out 370 square metre open plan office space served by lift, dedicated amenities and three carparks. One would think that the astute aspiring tenant would need to move quickly to secure this unprecedented opportunity to join Floth in benefitting from the sustainable features of this truly world leading building.
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