New Sustainability Project – Bendigo

Ward Carter is currently engaged for the redevelopment of the former BUFS building in King Street, Bendigo. This exciting new projects consists of:

• Ground floor retail with coffee mezzanine at first floor 
• First floor office space opening to external roof deck and
• Top floor apartment with 2 external decks

Incorporated are 20,000L of water storage as collected from the roof area for use as toilet flushing and watering of plants for the whole development and clothes washing for the apartment. Solar power generation has also been incorporated into the scheme. 

The development is planned around a series of centrally located external decks that allow what would otherwise have been a deep building, to be naturally ventilated and provides ample access for natural light.

The project is seen as an exemplar for sustainable design on a small to medium scale mixed-use development for Bendigo and the surrounding region.

Home Under Fire

08-02-09

 

Is there a bushfire resistant house ? Or is it how we choose to live ?

 

7^th February ’09, Black Saturday, became a hideous day in Australia for all Victorians.

 

Our “Community” was torn asunder.

 

Inner fear, terror, rose with unprecedented heat – 46.2 c. in Melbourne and hotter inland.

Roaring, searing winds increased with the temperature.

The evening became a terrifying unfathomable nightmare. An unrelenting horrible nightmare that ended dreams, ended lives in the cruellest way, and destroyed the idylls where families had lovingly made their homes.

 

It was nature’s most sadistic imaginable response.

 

Many had considered themselves prepared for a bushfire.

 

Tragically, nobody could be prepared for the might and magnitude of such firestorms.

 

And, why does it take a disaster to forge a Community ?

 

Because, what has emerged, grown out of this disaster is the strongest of Communities – a Community of overwhelming strength that knows that it will regenerate – just as Nature will regenerate.

 

The energy of this Community is unparalleled, and there is no doubt that carefully harnessed, this energy can work exponentially to rebuild a new, even stronger, and a safe Community.

 

Already, there is the will to re-build.

 

But, and this is important, it can’t be the same.

 

As in 1939, the 1960s, Ash Wednesday and Canberra in 2003 Nature is telling us – we are not in Europe. Not in a safe place. This is Australia.

 

Australia’s topography varies from arid desert, to coastal fringes which are bordered by ancient eroded mountains.   The tropical northern is increasingly ‘wet’ and subjected to more cyclones than before.  While in the south, suffering a decade of drought, temperatures are rising.  The southern landscape is scruffy and untidy where most trees are full of inflammable, exploding oils, where bone dry forest under-croft can ignite in an instant, where once saturated forests are now tinder dry. These changes, the wet and the dry,  are due to Climate Change.

 

 

Australia is a dangerous place. The idyll is a place of memory.

 

Devastation remains. In-hospitable? Unsustainable? Unhabitable?

 

Are there answers?

 

 

Well, maybe not answers, not easy answers. But there are clues. Clues in old places. Places where Communities have survived, often thrived, and occasionally struggled.

 

Places with generations of history. Centuries old and older.

 

Places that would seem to offer the surety that people need.

 

Places where overlooking means looking after. Places with dwellings of all sizes, for all kinds of people. All shapes and sizes. Young and old. Places providing the most humble of shelter clustered with modest family dwellings, that rise toward a meeting place, a square, a market place, a church, a mosque with the mysterious grand houses behind the garden wall.

 

Italian hill towns. The once Afghani. walled towns. The medinas of Morrocco. The Irish village. Clusters, here and there abutting forest or farmland.

 

There are, innumerable such places.

 

In Australia, some of us have thought ourselves sufficiently fortunate to be permitted to make our own places, a distance apart, close to nature, idyllic.

 

Paradoxically for our love of the “Bush” we have paid a horrible price.

 

It is not possible even with the best assistance available to live safely apart in our own acres of paradise amongst the very trees that we love surrounded by the stuff of nature.

 

It is however, perhaps possible to live more safely close to, but not amongst nature.

 

We need to ask ourselves if we can live this way. In a village in the country rather than on our own small acreage that renders us so prone to the danger of fire.

 

The ‘infra-structure’, and better infrastructure at that, would cost less. The pub, shops and meeting places close by. Larger, productive farms might abut the “Village” as might carefully managed “Nature” or even wilderness. There might be several roads in and several roads out. The next village, township, or a city might be not far away reached by safe road or rail, a picturesque distance through managed farmland or alongside forest. Across bridges and by sea-shore.

 

This needs to be planned – carefully.

 

It may seem sad that we need to plan so well. That we need to manage and be managed.

 

 

Most of us Australians can be a pig-headed lot. We pride ourselves in our self-sufficiency. We don’t like to be told.

 

However, I think that ‘Nature’ is telling us. Sorry, but it’s not so simple….

 

But I’m sure there is the sustainable way that we can live in Australia. In fact many, many ways for many, many places.

 

And our houses can be better planned, less grand, workable functional places that do not take us all our time and money to look after – to do basic maintenance. Places that bask in winter sunshine that can repel summer heat. Hospitable places.

 

Where we can live healthier lives with fewer expenses in a diverse and real community where all is not rosy all of the time, where we can keep an eye on each other. Where we can assist the vulnerable and where trusted neighbours will keep an eye on the kids.

 

A cherished place where we can with confidence say that we are safe, secure, happy.

 

Where we belong.

 

Architecture is only a small part of it. Put our minds to it, and “We”, can do damn near anything.

 

“Community”, can be made with human resolve. In the last week, You’ve proved it.

 

A bit of food for a lot of thought.

 

Dennis Carter            16-02-09

    

The Times Are A-Changin!

‘The times are a-changin’. Bob  Dylan wrote those words in 1963 nearly half a century ago, and in many respects his prophetic words still ring true yet his prophecies have never truly been heeded. 

 

During the Bush Howard years climate change was scoffed at.  John Howard’s retort was that new ecological technologies would impede our economy growth. Bush, on the other hand, refused to even acknowledge climate change.

 

Yet the world’s climates are changing. 

 

In Australia the top end is receiving more and more rain, while the southern states, particularly South Australia and Victoria are recording record dry (drought) seasons and increased temperatures.  Victoria the once acclaimed ‘garden state’ has changed dramatically.  This season’s bush fires have been the worst on record. 

 

Our landscape management, our water management – the very way we live needs to change.

 

It was with great respect that we watched the lone independent Nick Xenophon stand up and refuse to ratify the economical stimulus package, unless the government  supported his claim for a $900 million package to go into the depleted Murray Darling Basin system,  $500 million of the package was to buy back of water leases and further money was to go to communities to plan for ‘a future with less water’.

 

The landscape of Australia/Victoria will be greatly altered over the next decades.  We need to see a reduction in the amount of irrigation used; we need to see the end of unsustainable crops such as cotton and tobacco.  We need to understand our continent  and work with the land to create sustainable agricultural hubs, sustainable non-pollutant energy sources, and better and more equitable housing.  We need to be the ‘clever country’.  

 

Australia could and should lead the world in solar generated power.  Australia is the hottest continent and thus has an unlimited source of solar power.  Parts of Central Australia could be become large solar farms which could be generating clean power to our cities and for export to our near neighbours.   

 

No longer can we all live on the coast, we need to inhabit the interior more, but in order to do that we need to plan for large rural communities that are sustainable on all levels.  I envisage the end of the quarter acre block, even in the country.  More dense urban areas are called for. We have come to a stage in our development where we must stop looking at the American model of the post-war years of ever expanding suburbs, reliant on the motor vehicle and look to our forefather’s lifestyles in Britain and Europe. Italian hill towns and English hamlets were not built as cluster developments for no good reason.  Originally it may have been for security, but it was for economical, infrastructure and social reasons too.  People lived near to where they worked.  They lived in close proximity to their neighbours.  Cities and  towns were surrounded by meadows and fields with the forest beyond. The Australian ideal of  the bush block, the house, the small community surrounded by dense bush requires a rethink. 

 

Our physical houses need to be rethought too.  We do not need houses that are too big for our requirements.  The average family does not need a 45sq. plus house, in which each bedroom has its own bathroom and there are multiple entertainment areas such as the theatre room, the outdoor room and the parents retreat.  These large houses are generally unsustainable both environmentally and financially and are under utilised.    The focus needs to be on compact housing that consumes less energy, is more family friendly, community friendly and environmentally friendly.

 

These are some of the philosophical ideals of Ward Carter.  To provide excellence in housing, irrespective of budget, to aid people to live better, to live more environmentally, to live more sustainable lifestyles. To live with grace.

 

Of course, we can and do design the occasional ‘big house’, the generous house for those generous and hospitable clients who like to share their wealth with family and friends.

 

I will talk about art another time……….

karen