The Eden’s garden: Burwood Brickworks!
Striving for an accreditation of Living building challenge, Burwood brickworks retail centre made a bold statement aiming to be net zero. LBC benchmark is inspired from nature and asks for a positive energy with a portion dedicated to agriculture and with a zero carbon, water and waste footprint with other health and well being petal categories. LBC challenged industries to build a regenerative building that is net positive what was initially thought to be highly impossible.
However, Burwood Brickworks have approached the project with a net positive lens and embedded infrastructure and utilities such as an on-site electricity network, recycled material use, inclusion of urban roof farms . The innovation of rooftop farms with a farm to table restaurant is one of the first in Australia. The entire area designated for this purpose is 2000 sq mts comprising greenhouses, landscape areas, planter boxes suitable for ticking the LBC’S well-being box. The transformation of this building into a mixed-use development with on-site food sourcing looks promising to achieve the LBC accreditation.
Focussing on the community and connecting people to nature, developers seem to understand what is needed to make the building a natural centre for the new mixed use community.
Aimed to make a difference in people’s lives, this retail centre opens its doors to natural light, vegetation and full of fresh air. Interesting features of the roof are its skylights providing diffused south light below while the operable windows let the natural air pass through. Landscape and vegetation are the highlights connecting people from the outer natural settings to inner settings of the centre.
This new shopping centre may transform and influence the retail industry to follow its path to be part of the community.
My recommendation would be to provide ageing housing on the roof since it has in-built vegetation with the nearby retail shops making it self-sufficient and a perfect setting for a retirement pent housing.
