6 Green Stars For Melbourne's Szencorp Building

Here’s another example of the increasing awareness of sustainability issues in the FM industry.  FM Innovations will keep you posted on news and trends.  This article comes from fmexpress...

Managers of the Szencorp building at 40 Albert Road in South Melbourne have chosen Nubian’s GT600 Grey Water Treatment System to recycle the building’s greywater.

The system, designed in conjunction with Tiller + Tiller and installed in the basement of the Szencorp Building by Sustainable Plumbing Solutions, is capable of treating up to 1500 litres of grey water a day to class A water quality without the use of chemicals.

Managing director of Nubian, Steve Makins, said that the company is very excited to have been selected by a building with such high sustainability credentials as Szencorp.

According to Energy Conservation Systems Victorian state manager, Tony Dorotic, the Oasis GT600 is set up to receive grey water from two showers and ten hand basins, with the treated recycled water then used for toilet flushing. It is estimated that the water savings in a year will amount to around 78,000 litres. 

The idea for the Szencorp Building's sustainability initiatives was the vision of Peter Szental, managing director of the Szencorp Group of Companies. 

He was concerned that commercial buildings were major users of energy and water and on current projections, would account for 20% of Australia’s greenhouse emissions by 2010.

Originally a dysfunctional mid 1980s office building, Mr  Szental said that Szencorp has been fully recycled into a modern, stylish, sustainable showcase setting an enviable standard for others to follow.

The building has achieved the highest possible green rating in Australia, including a 6-star GreenStar design rating and 5-star ABGR & 5 Star Nabers.

Key features of the Szencorp Building include natural air flow through out the building and the first field trial of a Ceramic Solid Oxide Fuel Cell in real life conditions in Australia. The full cell converts natural gas into electricity, supplying 90% of hot water with 85% efficiency.

Furthermore, a weather station that works in unison with the Building Management System was installed to control ventilation and provide data for the heating and cooling systems. The weather station monitors wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, barometric pressure and air temperature.

The building's lighting design and installation is at world’s best practice, utilising new generation triphosphor and T5 lamps, dimmable DSI ballasts controlled via an intelligent occupancy based system to achieve 1.4 watts per 100 lux.

A low energy IT solution, which features LCD flat panel screens, reduces heat-load on the building while an energy saving central vacuum cleaning system has been installed o improve indoor environment quality.

Finally, the underground car park has CO sensing which operates lighting when people are present and exhaust fans to remove carbon monoxide when cars are present.

Article content from www.fmexpress.com.au
By FMExpress editor Marta Wiacek
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