Retrofitting for community, heritage, and sustainability were at the heart of winning designs in the Living Future Institute of Australia’s ILLUMANATE Living Building Challenge (LBC) Design Competition, with the winners announced on Tuesday.
In partnership with Development Victoria, the competition challenged built environment students and professionals to reimagine a 1970s heritage listed brutalist City West Water building Melbourne’s Sunshine North that would theoretically achieve Full Certification under version 4.0 of the LBC.
The building is part of Development Victoria’s new mixed-use community called LUMA, and the submissions had to live up to precise environmental and self-sustaining standards, such as generating energy, and capturing and treating water.
According to the LFIA, the number of competition entries has increased by 94 per cent since 2016, when it first ran. This year, the judging panel was said to be impressed by the 33 submissions and said they demonstrated a “remarketing depth of understanding of the sustainability requirements needed for an LBC certification.”
List of winners:
Professional Category: Includesign & Mine the Sky (team members included Angelica Rojas, Marco Cubillos, Dominique Hes, Elena Pereyra, Aimee Mehan and Alexander Arboleda).
The project created a narrative that moved between the two creeks on site, drawing from the traditional practices of the Kurung-jang-balluk people who would have rested, feasted, hunted and told their stories there. The design highlighted the potential for residents and visitors to rediscover the relationship of caring for the place and each other.
Student Category: Breathe on the Land by Chon Kei Lam, from The University of Melbourne.
This project aimed to reintroduce the word “nature” to the site, using the surrounding remnant grassland to reimagine a future life there. Lam states, “In the contemporary world, there exists a clear boundary between humans and nature. ‘Nature’ is often referred to as plants or animals from which we exclude ourselves.”
People’s Choice: Resonance by Arkee Studio (team members included Rean Zhuo, Dino Delotavo, Zilin Zhou, Yu Tian and Hao Chen).
This project combined heritage preservation and sustainability to create a thriving community hub called The Sunshine Hub. The innovative design embodied the vision of evolving into a cherished community hub that will resonate with significance for individuals today, as well as future generations.
Retrofitting was key
The LFIA has redirected its attention to existing buildings this year, because “80 per cent of buildings that will exist in 2050 already exist today and achieving net zero by then necessitates deep retrofits.”
Competing designs were judged through a two-stage process, with the first focusing on LBC imperatives and whether projects could achieve Petal Certification, and the second focusing on functionality and the realisation of potential.
The judges also shared that many entries emphasised themes such as the circular economy, and nature-based and nature-positive concepts. This is a positive sign at a time when the built environment generates nearly 40 per cent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions, and “is crucial in order to continue working towards creating an environmentally thriving planet.
“Investing in the future is pivotal, towards a place where modern architecture forges a unity between design and nature.”
LFIA chief executive Laura Hamilton-O’Hara said, “We are delighted by the number and quality of entries we received this year. It certainly made the judging a challenge. Thank you to all the teams for the amount of time and care put into your entry. To see the building come to life in many unique, regenerative, and imaginative ways was inspiring.”
The 2023 judging panel included: Bohemia Hookham; Lendlease, Claire Martin; OCULUS, Kai Chen; Lovell Chen, Kelvin Walsh; Brimbank City Council, Penny Forrest; Development Victoria, Roger Nelson; Roger Nelson Architecture, Stefan Preuss; Office of the Victorian Government Architect (OVGA), Tim Miller; Development Victoria Yuyuen Leow; Hayball.