Forest EcoCentre

Last crawled date: 1 year ago

This project represents a significant attempt to move forward with the aim of creating an office building design type which is more energy efficient from a long term sustainability perspective. The Eco Centre is essentially one building inside another. Its outer skin is a naturally vented conservatory, made of plywood, twin wall polycarbonate with a teflon coated membrane roof, and fitted with large louvre banks so its interior can breathe. The internal building is the habitable office space, and the way the air moves between the two determines its overall energy efficiency. Initial findings indicate that it uses approx 50% of the energy normally required to run a modern office building, and yet it has not cost any more than the equivalent air conditioned office to construct. This means that ongoing energy savings do not have to be offset by increased initial capital expenditure, as is often the case. #2003 #architecture #Australia #awards #Commercial #eco_centre #forest_ecocentre #institute #MorrisNun #RAIA #Scottsdale #TAS