Victoria’s First 6 Star Green Office Tenancy- What Are You Doing?

Umow Lai is an engineering services and sustainability consultancy and its South Yarra office fit out has just been awarded Victoria’s first 6 Star Green Office Interiors rating by the Green Building Council of Australia.

The fit out shows green buildings can be very profitable. Umow Lai Managing Director Dominic Lai says:

“This is a great milestone for our company…It demonstrates our commitment to providing innovation and expertise for green buildings that are designed and operated properly. It confirms the benefits of sustainability because it has delivered a 13 per cent improvement in productivity. This is an extraordinary achievement in terms of environmental quality, energy savings, cost benefits and staff satisfaction.”

Sustainable elements in the 6 Star Green Star rating include:

• Five bio filtration walls of plants growing vertical to the ceiling act as natural breathing filters, removing airborne chemical contaminants or Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), a major contributor to poor indoor air quality. Adapted from overseas technology by Shane Esmore for Umow Lai, the bio walls are an Australian first
• An abundance of openable windows that allow natural ventilation in summer, reduce the need for air conditioning and ensure an abundance of natural light
• Workstations placed around the perimeter of walls to use of the sunlight
• Meeting rooms that open to large balconies, furnished with outdoor tables and chairs for staff use
• Phase change material in one of the meeting rooms to moderate the climate without the need for separate air-conditioning
• High levels of energy efficiency achieved through state-of-the-art lighting and equipment selection
• High outside airrates through the use of innovative heat exchange systems
• Careful selection of materials with low VOC and formaldehyde content, including reused and recycled PVC-free material for electrical and communications cabling and reusing workstations, storage cabinets, tables and chairs
• Metering systems to continuously monitor and improve system performance

Background

Umow Lai was established in 1991 and now has one of the largest sustainability groups in Australia, employing 21 Professionals Accredited with the
Green Building Council of Australia, one Green Star Assessor and four NABERS Accredited Assessors.

NABERS is a performance-based rating system for existing buildings. It rates a building on the basis of its measured operational impacts on the environment, and provides a simple indication of how well you are managing these environmental impacts compared with your peers and neighbours.

Umow Lai’s work includes:

• Fujitsu’s fit out in the 6 Star Green Star-Office Design certified building at 825 Bourke Street, Melbourne
• AXA headquarters, 385 Bourke Street, Melbourne
• the 5 Star Green Star rated Hume City Council offices, Broadmeadows, Vic
• the $150 million Victorian government project to build 11 schools under public-private partnerships
• the $17 million redevelopment of Visy Park for Carlton Football Club
• the $1.7 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital
• 200 Victoria Street, Carlton, site of the former CUB’s laboratories

AND…

Umow Lai and FMSA Architecture based in North Melbourne have just won a major design award for Victoria’s s ‘greenest justice department building’. The Moorabbin Justice Centre was named winner of the Outstanding Sustainable Building Award at the Architectural and Design Excellence in South East Asia Awards.

When opened in November 2007, the $28.2 million building was one of the most energy efficient justice buildings in the country. It was also the first in Melbourne to utilise a night sky cooling system where rain water is collected, cooled at night and reused the next day as chilled water the mechanical system.

The success of the project has been attributed to the close working relationship between the architects and engineers, each of whom wanted to create a sustainable building that would provide access to the justice systems in a visually and physically transparent manner.

For more info contact:

Melanie Cheshire, Marketing Manager, T: 03 9249 0288 M: 0423 974 961. E:melanie.cheshire@umowlai.com.au

or

Rosemary Rule, Publicist. Ph: 03 9529 6637 or 0418 675 734. E: rule@comcen.com.au