Diversity is the key to design for net zero building performance

As we work through the technical challenges of designing, delivering and operating net zero buildings, diversity is proving a valuable ally. It means we can draw on ideas from different disciplines and the design traditions and experiences from geographies around the world. This is the secret to improving on business as usual and delivering better outcomes.

Since joining Cundall, I have seen the value of this in the everyday working culture. Our teams are multidisciplinary, so everyone brings a different lens to the problems we solve. The level of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and information exchange continually encourages learning. As engineers, this also ensures we keep growing professionally.

The technical seminars and internal presentations are an extremely productive element too, not only for the insights shared but also the sense it creates of people from all our global offices, being valued for the expertise they share and their experiences on projects.

How we apply knowledge across regions

This interconnection and sharing of knowledge are a resource base that helps us tackle the technical challenge of mitigating and adapting in the face of climate change. In Australia, for example, policy and progress is behind compared to some other parts of the world.

There is a lag in the uptake of new technologies in sectors such as renewable energy and advanced technologies that contribute to reducing carbon emissions. Our teams in other locations help us address this through sharing ideas that we can then apply locally.

For example, the Hong Kong team delivered an internal presentation on the Treehouse, a highly advanced green building that has been designed to operate at net zero. The technical innovations in the design were extremely interesting and many can be adapted in our design for local projects.

The use of natural ventilation in a high-rise building is a tremendous opportunity for reducing energy use needed for mechanical cooling and ventilation. The building services design for Treehouse uses outside wind conditions to supply cooling and heating for the system, which helps reduce electricity demand requirements.

The engineers had designed to optimise the stack effect, which improves the effectiveness of natural airflow and passive thermal comfort design and integrated the stack effect into the HVAC design. They proved we can make effective natural ventilation a foundation for mechanical services design.

We can also examine the assumptions around energy use and systems for hot water – where can we save energy? We can consider what temperature is actually needed, and how we can use passive systems to help achieve it, so electricity requirements for all-electric systems are minimised.

The Hong Kong team also incorporated a variety of advanced software solutions and ideas for utilising them that further reduce energy requirements compared to a standard office building, and new refrigerants that reduce the carbon footprint. Our task is to make refrigerants with low greenhouse warming potential (GWP) standard for Australian buildings in combination with optimising natural ventilation approaches so all-electric buildings are high performance, low energy use.

Challenging local assumptions

Our team also takes inspiration and gains knowledge from net zero projects being designed and delivered in Europe by Cundall – and this again is an example of the strengths of our diverse culture and how it adds value for client projects and for our professional growth.

Passive house approaches, for example, are common in Europe as a means of saving on energy use. As we look to design out on-site fossil fuel combustion in the form of gas for heating, cooling, hot water and heating, adapting elements of passive house to all manner of building types can have benefits for low-energy, all-electric assets.

We need to be creative in how we use new technology, which also means our people are engaged in ongoing training in how and when to use those systems. We also need to be proactive in how we share insights and ideas with architects and clients, explaining why specific approaches, systems or technologies will be more effective. As building services consultants it is also our role to raise issues with clients, communicating the value proposition clearly so they understand the benefits they receive from ideas we propose.

What we cannot do is default to simply accepting standard or unexamined approaches that do not test basic assumptions against the benchmark of high performance, low carbon, energy efficient building operations. In some ways, we need to break the rules of business-as-usual, because business-as-usual is how we got to the tipping point of irreversible climate change.

Our common ground globally is the objective to achieve decarbonisation and halt the decline of the global environment. Advocating for and creating greener buildings is where we can deliver on that goal - sharing knowledge and encouraging everyone’s inventiveness is key to that.