Heritage Lanes comes up 6 star

Mirvac has achieved a 6 star Green Star Buildings V1 certified rating from the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) for its Heritage Lanes project in Brisbane.

According to AECOM, the consulting firm that worked on the project, Heritage Lanes is an Australian first. A 74,000m², 35-storey premium office tower in Brisbane’s CBD, It retains elements of the original Brisbane Markets from 1906 while creating more sustainable community-centred spaces.

AECOM provided the project’s sustainability and wellness consultancy services, BIM, and structural and civil engineering.

AECOM Chief Executive for Australia and New Zealand Richard Barrett says the firm is proud to see Heritage Lanes attain the 6 star Green Star Buildings certification.

“Through our Sustainable Legacies strategy, we are committed to helping our clients deliver projects that leave a positive, lasting legacy for our planet,” says Barrett.

AECOM worked with Mirvac to implement innovative design and procurement initiatives to improve environmental outcomes across the entire operation of the building. These include:

• Redesigning substations and switchboards to allow for all-electric cooking, heating, and increased electric vehicle charging facilities (future provision of 40 per cent of car spaces)
• Procuring lower carbon concrete, resulting in a 26 per cent reduction in upfront carbon compared to a standard practice GBCA reference building
• Using a power purchase agreement, 100 per cent of the base building electricity and over 50 per cent of the tenants’ power is renewable
• Redesigning chiller plant with lower-carbon HFO refrigerants and offsetting climate impacts from all other residual refrigerants in base-building split air conditioning units, refrigerators, and freezers
• Commencing rehabilitation on eight hectares in the Little Liverpool Range, south-east Queensland, to restore cleared farmland to its pre-development biodiversity, equivalent to the building’s gross building area from cleared farmland to its pre-development biodiversity
• Maximising the available accessible space to the community, the lobby was elevated above ground level and features a porte-cochere, landscaping, beehives, bush tucker garden, and a market hall, which the wider Brisbane community can book
• Conducting a Social Return on Investment Study on the project – aligned with the new Green Star Buildings rating – and identifying the net positive economic benefit to local and global society derived from sustainability initiatives. These include natural-capital, occupant health benefits and tenant productivity.