New Zealand Commercial Design Trends Series NZ Commercial Design Trends Vol. 30/12 | Page 136

Excess energy is used by neighbouring buildings
on the Innovation Campus, with further surplus
supplied to the grid.
The centre also captures and stores rainwater
in a 65,000 litre tank, and the water is then used
throughout the building, including for flushing toilets, cleaning and garden irrigation.
The building has water-efficient fixtures and
fittings and does not use water-hungry evaporative
cooling towers in its air-conditioning system. As
a result, its water consumption and supply are
completely self-sustaining, except for the legal
requirement to provide town water for drinking.
One other requirement of the Living Building
Challenge was the selection of materials that do not
harm human health or the environment in any
fundamental way, and that are produced and

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supplied in a socially responsible manner. This
highlighted a current difficulty in getting precise
information from suppliers about what is in their
products and where they actually come from.
For Professor Paul Cooper, the Sustainable
Buildings Research Centre is a true living laboratory – a place to work together with industry and
academic collaborators from around the world.
“We’re developing new products and systems
that will not only improve energy efficiency and
sustainability for today’s buildings, but which will
improve the resilience of our built environment to
climate, economic and social change in the future.”

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Below:The overhang on the
office wing gives maximum
shading to the inside. Rather
than extend the glazing to floor
level, the design team specified
timber panels that give increased
shading and provide wall space
for the offices inside.
Story by Paul Taylor
Photography by
Richard Glover