Melbourne’s tallest residential mass timber building.
As architects in the current climate zeitgeist, we seek to answer two questions. How do we invert the carbon diagram—from carbon creation to carbon capture and sequestration, and how do we respond to Australia’s escalating construction costs?
With the knowledge that mass timber can have a significant impact on a building’s embodied energy and decarbonization – and that while other construction material prices have grown, timber supply pricing has in fact decreased – an answer to both questions emerges in 276 Johnston Street, Melbourne’s tallest mass timber building and Australia’s first Passive Haus certified apartment complex.
Guided by the Passive Haus principles – the seventeen storey building isa system based architectural form with performance at its core. Inverting the typical Pass Haus approach Johnston Street is protected by a waterproof glass enclosure revealing its timber structure and material identity. Our position is to embrace an honest, robust and ethical material expression. Rejecting applied finishes and showcasing true material. Void of non-essential elements, it is driven by the science of sustainability.
Contrasting with the sealed Passive Haus tower, a permeable street front and interface activating the nearby train station undercroft immerses itself in the Abbotsford community. Throughout the building, large social terraces every 3 levels create a vertical community and landscape connection complimented with a tenant centric social strategy catering for work, wellness and entertainment.
Seeking to uphold the highest standards of sustainable building, Johnston Street is set to grapple with the current construction cost climate, proves that building sustainably doesn’t have to be expensive, and ask its own question: with all this information in mind, are there any excuses for negligence?
