AECOM engineers win top award for Western Australia’s greenest building

 

 

AECOM has received Western Australia's highest environmental engineering honour for its groundbreaking work on 2 Victoria Avenue, the state’s most environmentally friendly building.

The project, which features a number of Western Australian firsts, won the Environment category of the Engineering Excellence Awards announced on 12 September 2009.

Completed in May 2009, 2 Victoria Avenue was developed by Stockland and designed by Woodhead Architects.

AECOM, which was responsible for all the engineering services for the building, introduced innovations that helped the building halve its carbon footprint and slash its power and energy use, making 2 Victoria Avenue WA’s greenest building.

These included three helical wind turbines on the roof to provide renewable power, use of active chilled beams as the primary form of air conditioning and an automated western façade to facilitate natural lighting while eliminating the negatives of radiant temperature and glare.

The building has already been recognised by the Green Building Council of Australia under its national Green Star environmental rating scheme, achieving the first 6 Star rating (Office Design v2) in Western Australia.

This rating is the highest possible and signifies world leadership in environmental design. Fewer than 10 other office buildings in Australia have achieved this level of certification.

The building is also the only one in WA to commit to a 5 Star National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) rating which indicates best practice environmental performance.

AECOM associate director Sven De Jonghe said 2 Victoria Avenue was a world-class building that represented a quantum shift in sustainable engineering design in Western Australia.

“In a world where climate change is a reality, every element of engineering design plays an important role in reducing environmental impact,” he said.

“We are pleased that what we have achieved with 2 Victoria Avenue has been recognised by the industry and hope that it will inspire others to strive for environmental excellence.

“This building has set the benchmark for the next generation of green buildings in this state.”