14 May 2009

Eco-City Melbourne

Visions from the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab.

The last remaining large-scale vacant site available for development in Melbourne’s CBD has been targeted for an eco-city of the future.

The Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL), funded by the Victorian Sustainability Fund, has applied its innovative thinking to transform the land, dubbed E-Gate, into a radical new zero-carbon development, the future of our built environment.

Between the CBD and Docklands, this district will be known as the Ecological Business District (EBD). Professor Chris Ryan, Director of VEIL, believes that in order to transform our economy to deal with climate change, we must target the areas of production, infrastructure, built environments and life-styles.

The EBD development aims to support those who choose to reduce their carbon footprint and “all people who live and work on the site will meet Victoria’s 2050 environmental targets twenty-five years ahead of time.”

VEIL ran a series of workshops last year with design staff from the Universities of Melbourne, Monash, RMIT and Swinburne. These creative scholars connected with international and local experts to develop ideas for this new model of sustainable living, based on “living better, consuming less,” to be developed in the next 6 – 10 years.

www.ecoinnovationlab.com

Hero Image: 'Vertical Farm' Design by Yongpeng Shen at RMIT as part of the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL)

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it would be interesting to know what the embodied CO2 of the proposed building is- sustainability will come through us adapting to reduced circumstances- that is by consuming less, and that includes floorspace. If the crunch time to avoid a 2degC increase in temperature is the next ten years, building more buildings, as opposed to renewable energy infrastructure is not really an answer. Improved operational efficiencies are usually assigned to a fifty or even eighty year life cycle. this is an out moded and inappropriate time scale for assessing climate impact. If a ten year period is used the significance of embodied CO2 becomes obvious. at least it would be good to keep a rigorous account of the embodied CO2 so the analysis could be done

roderick simpson June 08 2009

Legacy from Dick Pratt of Visy fame. His company in conjunction with Deco Wall tm has develop a 99% recycled carboard substrate for acoustic wall panelling that is listed on Ecospecifier web site. This product will help achieve green star rating points for GBCA evaluated projects.More info www.decocwall.com.au