Hassell studio set to achieve Australia’s newest Green Star rating

International design practice Hassell has registered Australia’s first Green Star - Interiors project, with its soon-to-open studio in Sydney set to be one of the nation’s greenest offices.

The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) launched the new Green Star - Interiors PILOT rating tool in 2012 to assess the interior fit-out of any building type, from schools and shops, to offices, bank branches and hotels. It evolved from the Green Star - Office Interiors rating tool.

“Hassell is a founding member of the GBCA, has been a strong supporter of Green Star since its earliest days and sponsored the development of this new rating tool. We are excited to be working with Hassell to test the Green Star - Interiors credits on this flagship project and set new best practice benchmarks for sustainable interiors,” said the GBCA’s Chief Executive, Romilly Madew.

The Head of Knowledge and Sustainability at Hassell, Brett Pollard, says that supporting the new rating tool is a natural extension of the practice’s commitment to sustainable design and an opportunity to deepen their team’s knowledge of a tool which will be of relevance to many clients.

“We want our new home to be an exemplar of the latest thinking in workplace design, as well as sustainability. Being involved in piloting the new rating tool will allow us to really get to grips with Green Star - Interiors and apply the lessons learnt to our clients’ projects as well as our own new workplace,” Pollard said.

The new Hassell studio in Sydney will be located in a heritage wharf building at Walsh Bay and is the latest in a series of studios the company has designed for itself in repurposed buildings. The Hassell Melbourne studio reinvigorated a disused warehouse building, its award-winning Brisbane studio was once a bread factory and the Shanghai studio breathed new life into an old motorcycle factory when it opened in 2010.

“Green Star - Interiors will help our industry to deliver more productive, more sustainable and healthier indoor environments for a much broader range of people, and we congratulate the team at Hassell for its green leadership,” Madew said.

The GBCA seeks expressions of interest from projects, particularly in the education, retail and hospitality sectors, to achieve the first certifications in their market segments. More information is available at www.gbca.org.au/interiors.