Design Lessons

Despite the Thurgoona campus being well in front of any other environmentally informed building project of comparable scale in Australia, there are some shortcomings and unresolved problems from which lessons can be learnt.

There is a major design life differential between the rammed earth walls and the galvanised steel rainwater tanks which are integrated into these walls. The tanks are likely to deteriorate and require replacing long before the rammed earth walls; therefore design detailing has allowed for their future removal and replacement. But this will be a more intrusive operation than if the tanks had been free-standing.

There was a deliberate design decision to favour 'maintainability' over 'low maintenance' and most elements have been detailed so they can be accessed for repair. Some items will require periodic maintenance, such as the timber window frames, but if they are maintained by the application of organic oil (the original coating) rather than petrochemical derived coatings (conventional paints and varnishes), this is a cost rather than an environmental issue. As yet, no formal mechanism has been put into place (such as a building use manual) to ensure that maintenance practices continue to be environmentally low impact.

This links to the more substantive problem of the Thurgoona project, one common to many others, environmentally ambitious or otherwise, which is a breakdown in the chain of responsibility for the ongoing performance of what has been built. The missing link in the chain is building commissioning. Thurgoona's innovative heating and cooling system has not been formally commissioned, therefore it is not certain to know whether it is functioning as designed. It follows that it is also not possible to accurately monitor energy consumption, nor to analyse or report on performance.

  Exterior view of Lecture Theatre showing rammed earth landscaped roof

The commissioning of buildings, i.e. the process to ensure all the systems are operating as designed, that 'as installed' drawings and operational instructions have been issued by installation contractors, that operational staff are made familiar with the building's systems, that maintenance procedures and a building log book are in place, and much more - is a vital co-ordinating role that is often given to no-one in particular. For buildings that have been designed for energy efficiency, or even more so, that have complex energy and water conservation systems, the commissioning process is all the more important.

It is worth noting that the trend in the USA on environmentally ambitious projects, is to involve a building commission expert on the design team from early stages. While that may seem like overkill for smaller or in-house projects (such as a university that designs and procures its own buildings), commissioning needs to be a designated responsibility from the beginning of any building project to ensure optimal environmental performance from day one of operation.

From a pragmatic perspective, Thurgoona does demonstrate that it is possible to deliver buildings and infrastructure that over the long term can achieve significant reductions in water, energy and resource use, while delivering facilities and accommodation at the same cost and of the same standard (in many respects superior) as equivalent institutions.

While in its totality Thurgoona is not replicable, lessons can be learnt. It cannot be taken as a template to apply to other situations because so much of its design has been driven by creative responses to a local context - the nature of the site, its climate, available materials, trade skills and environmental expertise. A complex understanding of environmental impacts and an unswerving commitment to make these as minimal as possible have equally informed the design process. Out of this commitment to sustainability, modulated by responsiveness to circumstances, Thurgoona has been created as a distinctive place that has real ambience (very rare for institutional buildings). That can't just be copied. On the other hand, the disposition, thinking and learning processes that have informed its design and delivery are eminently transferable to other projects.