This past March at the Passive House Conference in Munich, Germany, I had the opportunity to meet with Dieter Herz of Herz and Lang. One of the founding members of a very experienced & prestigious passive house design consulting firm in Europe. During our discussion and later in his presentation, I was a bit surprised at the level of emphasis he put on passive house certification. In his words “Passive house certification is vital to assure quality and avoid the performance gap. Passive house certification ensures avoiding the gap.”
I‘m very excited about what could become the largest passive house building in the world, being built in Melbourne, Australia right next door to New Zealand. But I hope they aim for Passive House Certification and not just ‘benchmark’ or else they might unfortunately find the gap
A joint submission from Cox Architecture and Dutch practice UNStudio has taken out developer Beulah International’s design competition for a $2 billion mixed-use skyscraper on the BMW site at Southbank in Melbourne.
The proposed twin-building development – for which approval will still need to be sought – will feature Australia’s tallest tower yet, a residential skyscraper reaching 356.2 metres.
Named Green Spine, the two twisting wood-heavy buildings feature green-studded balconies and publicly accessible garden terraces. Apart from the residential tower, the second 252-metre tower will feature a hotel and commercial space, and there will be a connecting podium containing a retail and entertainment precinct.
Atelier 10 was appointed sustainability and wellbeing consultant for the project, with the company revealing on its website that the residential tower could be benchmarked to Passive House standards, which if achieved would make the project the largest Passive House development in the world.
The rest of the development will also be striving for high sustainability standards, with Atelier 10 setting benchmarks of 6 Star NABERS for the office space, WELL Building Standard for the hotel and 5 Star NABERS for the podium.
Atelier 10 was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline.
“Atelier 10 was appointed sustainability and wellbeing consultant for the project, with the company revealing on its website that the residential tower could be benchmarked to Passive House standards, which if achieved would make the project the largest Passive House development in the world.”
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