Sustainable buildings need sustainable design processes: The case of the Woodside Building for Technology and Design, the first University building in Australia to aim for the Passivhaus certification

Abstract

Energy performance certificates (EPCs) are conventionally employed to certify the design according to different indicators. However, they are often used to evaluate the design outcomes, overlooking their potential as decision-making tools during the design process. Among those, Passivhaus is currently being debated in Australia. Currently, there are only less than 30 certified cases, and all of them are residential buildings. Thus, the question about its suitability for commercial cases in the Australian context is still open. This paper contributes to the discussion, analysing the case study of the Woodside Building for Technology and Design in Melbourne, the first University Building to aim for the Passivhaus certification. The paper quantifies the impacts of the Passivhaus criteria on the façade design, benchmarking the energy demand against the 2016 Building Code of Australia (BCA-2016) deemed to satisfy (DTS) design approach. Results show that the approach adopted in this case study leads to much better environmental performance when compared to the minimum performance required by the Australian standard DTS design approach. This building sets a new sustainability target in the Australian design culture, showing that it is necessary to change the way buildings are designed, toward a more sustainable and integrated design process.