Pixel by Grocon is the first carbon neutral office building in Australia

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by Rebecca Walker — July 23, 2010—The Pixel building by Australian development and construction firm Grocon is not only the country’s first carbon neutral office building, it is also the greenest.

Completed this month, Pixel attained a green building score of 100, which exceeded the 75-point threshold for a 6 Star Green Star rating, the highest available under the Green Building Council of Australia’s assessment system.

The building also is seeking certification at the high levels from the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED system and the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodd, better known as the BREEAM, which is based in the United Kingdom.

The innovative building, Grocon CEO Daniel Grollo and project designers were praised by the Australian government and green building leaders at an opening ceremony last week that included Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Innovation Gavin Jennings and Australian Green Building Council Chief Executive Romilly Madew.

Elements contributing to the building’s energy and resource efficiency include:

  • Rooftop wind turbines and sun-tracking photo photovoltaic panels that generate electricity.

  • A boldly colored and distinctively shaped sun-shade system on the building’s exterior that allows the maximum amount of daylight into occupied space, but prevents excessive glare and heat from penetrating the building envelope.

  • Smart windows that open automatically in the evening to enable “night purging,” which enables the heat in the building to escape while allowing fresh air to cool it. A vacuum toilet system and other water-saving features and systems that can make the building water-neutral in addition to carbon neutral.

  • Rainwater harvesting, stormwater runoff prevention and use captured water that includes irrigation of the building’s reed bed system and vegetative roof.

  • An anaerobic digestion system.

  • Use of a specially developed concrete, called Pixelcrete, which halves the embodied carbon in the mix.

Project partners include architects at the firm studio 505, building services engineering and sustainability consultancy Umow Lai and structural engineering company VDM Consulting. For more information, see the Grocon Web site.