Figure 1: Location of Prince Henry Site |
Figure 2: Landcom's Masterplan for the Site |
Figure 3: Landscape Design |
Figure 4: Sustainability and Risk Management |
Landcom is a state-owned corporation of the New South Wales Government in Australia that controls the redevelopment of the former Prince Henry Hospital site at Little Bay (Figure 1) from its old, worn and ageing state into a sustainable community with a coastal village theme. The new community will take advantage of spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and provides access to the open space and recreational facilities of the site.
A major Australian residential property development company recently submitted a tender (bid) to Landcom for the redevelopment. This company had not been involved in a project incorporating significant sustainable development principles, nor in a development project for the New South Wales State Government. It hired PB to develop solutions to Landcom's minimum triple bottom line requirements that were stated in the invitation to tender.
Addressing the Triple Bottom Line Prince Henry Hospital has a significant history and was an important medical facility in Sydney until it was decommissioned in 2003. Its facilities include heritage-listed buildings—the Matron Dickson Nurses Ward, the Pathology Department and the Institute of Tropical Medicine (Figure 2) that have significant non-indigenous heritage value. These buildings and the unique nature of the site presented numerous design challenges including:
• Adapting heritage buildings for residential use
• Managing threatened species
• Reusing rainwater
• Providing accessibility of the site to the community
• Balancing the cost of sustainability principles with what the market would be willing to pay.
Sustainability Outcomes. The medical facilities posed a significant design challenge to our architects, who had to adapt the arrangements of wards, dimensions of rooms and location of services to suit residential purposes. A creative solution for the Institute of Tropical Medicine was inspired by the views it provided of the Pacific Ocean—convert it into a public recreation facility, such as a restaurant or café.
The site contains two stands of Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub, a highly threatened vegetation community that is also a significant habitat. We noted that the landscape designs, construction management and long-term management of the site had to ensure the conservation and regeneration of the species.
As part of the water sensitive urban design strategy, the collection of rainwater for non-potable reuse (such as flushing of toilets and drip irrigation of landscaping) was recommended. However, an existing arrangement gives the Coast Golf Course, which is adjacent to the site, priority use of all rainwater collected from the Prince Henry Site to irrigate its greens. This arrangement leaves a limited quantity of water available for reuse on the Prince Henry site. Our recommendation was to provide the golf course with the overflow from the storm water tanks, leaving the remainder for use on the Prince Henry Site. The water sensitive landscape design developed for the tender ( Figure 3 ) incorporates low-waste native plants and permeable pavements.
Social Outcomes. The social challenges for the project included supporting local community values and those of the numerous interested stakeholder groups and users of the site, such as Surf Life Saving Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, and Centre for Aged Care. The redevelopment of the Prince Henry site into detached dwellings and multi-unit apartment blocks would change the demographics of the local community. To address concerns, Landcom set aside four percent of the dwellings for affordable housing.
The coastal village theme proposed for the site balances the privacy of future residents with the requirement for public access to the open space and recreational facilities of the site. This access would maintain the local community values and prevent the creation of an elitist community on the site.
We recommended a dedicated community education facility in addition to the new homeowner kits1, as a measure to address the community consultation, education and community development outcomes. This facility would encourage residents and the broader community to access the site, learn about the sustainability features of the development and become familiar with its heritage aspects.
Economic Outcomes. Our client was required to produce a financial proposal that balanced the recommended sustainable measures with what the market would be willing to pay—a true exercise in balancing the triple bottom line. We and our client worked together to identify the most feasible and practical options to meet the environmental, social and economic requirements of the project. Some of the innovative solutions that were not incorporated into the proposal included using green roofs in the landscape design, hydronic space heating, and co-generation of energy.
Table 1: Prince Henry Triple Bottom Line Outcomes
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Recommended Initiatives
We evaluated the designs, identified the opportunities for incorporating sustainable solutions and assisted the client in balancing the environmental, social and economic aspects of the proposal. We also identified the need for the client to assess the long-term sustainable performance of the project to protect the interests of stakeholders, residents and the community. In the process, we raised the awareness of the client about the importance of thinking beyond the economic value of the project and considering the environmental and social value that can be achieved through sustainable principles. The client will be able to quantify performance by choosing predictive triple bottom line indicators and using risk management and continuous improvement techniques, as illustrated in Figure 4 .
The final set of initiatives that we proposed are summarised in Table 1 As can be seen, these initiatives inc lude sustainable innovations beyond Landcom's minimum requirements.
Triple Bottom Line Reporting : Site-specific
predictive indicators such as:
• Quantity of construction materials reused on site
and elsewhere
• Quantity of energy used and greenhouse gases
produced during construction
• Difference in household water usage at Prince Henry
when compared to the national/state/city average
• Difference in household energy consumption at
Prince Henry when compared to the
national/state/city average
• Number of stake holders involved in consultation
process
• Number of visitors to the education centre
• Health of Northern Bushland Park |
