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Netball Central is an expansive shed with
clever tweaks that demonstrates exemplary
sustainability. It boldly utilises structural steel
sheeting - rolled on site - for roofing and
shading in a long extrusion for the entire site.
Openings at court level provide connection to
the street and reveal the stepping topography
of the site. Natural ventilation is supported
to provide passive heating and cooling, in
combination with a thermal labyrinth and roof
vents. Natural light pervades the building,
further limiting energy consumption, while
light-diffusing materials assist to prevent glare
interfering with play. This, combined with
the warm portal frame of laminated veneer
lumber, creates a surprisingly comfortable
series of human scale spaces in a building of
such size.
Dedicated to women’s sport, and the first
facility to be built at Homebush since the
2000 Olympics, Netball Central is a strong
architecture drawn from the integration
of material, sustainable and
programmatic solutions.
Photo: Ethan Rohloff
SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE
ARCHITECTURE AWARD
Netball Central
Scott Carver
This modest new home located on a
challenging site in a sub-tropical zone
integrates sustainability into the design
approach on a fundamental level. It addresses
some of the primary tenets of architecture -
responses to climate, site, shelter and comfort
- and out of these creates delight.
Sound sustainability practices are used
without fanfare as a point of departure for the
project’s guiding architectural idea. Passive
solar orientation creates a compact linear
plan, and natural stack ventilation is achieved
through lineal circulation and a services ‘deck’
which also buffers noise from the adjacent
highway. A thermally controlled skylight
floods the space with natural daylight, and
the inclined roof plane creates a platform for
active solar systems and solar hot water whilst
also forming a mezzanine room that captures
breezes in summer and heat in winter. Water
harvesting and reuse is a given.
This house demonstrates how sustainability
can underpin the design of the most modest
of buildings; how it can form the solid
foundation of the design process without
becoming its singular expression.
Photo: James Hung
Ocean Shores House
A-CH (Atelier Chen Hung)
70 Castlereagh Street displays an innovative
and creative approach to the refurbishment
of an existing building. By developing an
inventive method for over cladding the
existing facade,the architect was able to
provide a design outcome that maximised the
modest budget, minimised impact to tenants
and is of a visual quality appropriate to its
prominent location.
The transparent glass facade wraps and
repositions the 1960’s office building and
acts to unify the irregularity of the existing
facade’s disparate materials. Reuse of existing
structural elements is maximised, reducing
the number of new materials needed for
construction and the amount of waste taken
off site. Insulated glazing units substantially
improve thermal performance over the
existing single skin glass and thereby provide
a significant reduction on the building’s
energy consumption.
Photo: Brett Boardman
70 Castlereagh Street, Sydney
Bates Smart
SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE
COMMENDATION
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