A radical rethink of environmental retrofits - an interview with Kaia McCarty-Smith and Emma Carstairs

Our cities are home to many solid, functional, and beautiful structures. As sustainability concerns continue to dominate the design conversation, designers, architects and builders are asking: 'how can existing buildings deliver more for people and the environment while consuming less?'

Finding Infinity in collaboration with Wilderness Building Co, Kennedy Nolan and Resin Property have embarked on a radical project to retrofit a 1970s Fitzroy apartment building, with the goal of turning the existing structure into a producer rather than a consumer of resources.

The project is part of Finding Infinity’s A New Normal, a proposal aimed at positioning Melbourne as a world leader in economic and environmental transition by 2036. A New Normal is progressing through a series of eight demonstration projects aimed at engaging the general public about what is possible and raising support for a policy transformation.

This project is aiming to create a financially replicable example of a low environmental impact retrofit with an emphasis on cost-effective initiatives, while increasing the amenity for tenants and extending the building’s lifespan.

This kind of transformative change aims to set a precedent for sustainable design in our cities and comes at an opportune time for Melbourne. Many local councils are urging building owners, tenants, industry associates, facility managers and governments to transform and retrofit buildings in city environments to reduce their carbon emissions.

We interviewed Kaia McCarty-Smith, the founder of Wilderness Building Co and Emma Carstairs, a director of Resin Property, the project manager, to expand our understanding of how such transformative interventions could be implemented on a wider scale, to ask what institutional and bureaucratic challenges to change exist and to explore how these challenges could be overcome.

What are the key challenges you want to address with this demonstration project?

KAIA:

Quite simply we’re trying to do a low cost, low budget, high performance retrofit. This building was incredibly cold in winter and incredibly hot in summer, and it was using a significant amount of energy. There were issues with mould and condensation that were starting to affect the integrity of the building, as well as the health of the inhabitants. We also want to improve the longevity of this 1970s building so it lasts another 100 years.

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced?

EMMA:

The planning application was a VicSmart application, which is a great initiative by the authority in that you can make an application and ten days later, you get a planning permit. A project like this theoretically is quite simplistic, because we're not knocking down, we're not rebuilding, so we don't need to go through any formal notice period and there are no objections. However, this meant there was no opportunity for a real sense of dialogue to be created with Council at the start of the project. It's sometimes been frustrating in that the Council sees the project only through what the drawings show. They don't understand the backstory, and they don't understand the initiatives that the team are incorporating into the project. This has been frustrating because we still have to go through a very typical negotiation process to change drawings or lodge amendments without that insight which is critical.

KAIA:

We're trying to do something that hasn't necessarily been done before in Melbourne. From a physical and practical sense we're trying to create solutions to problems that we've personally never encountered, and our peer group has never encountered, and we're also encountering resistance and nervousness from authorities, because they’re taking on risk as well.

EMMA:

That reminds me of a specific challenge we had with authorisations. The team at Wilderness recommended high-performance glazing and window frames, that met everything we wanted under the project brief. The building surveyor said 'that’s fine, but you need a fire engineer to certify it'. These windows are used in class-one dwellings all over the country and they can withstand bushfire. But there was an issue with these three windows in particular, because they were located just within three metres of the property boundary. We were being advised by one consultant to install drenches on the building, potential fire-retardant awnings, and it was a real challenge, because we weren't getting anywhere.

In the end, it took having a conversation with a different engineer who could look at it from our perspective and, within a matter of days, we had somebody that would support the design. It really highlighted to the team the fact that it is so nuanced, it’s almost subjective.

Why did you think you faced this resistance?

EMMA:

I don’t think people like challenging the status quo and many have a super risk-averse mindset. It was surprising to us that we did encounter a little bit of resistance to some of these initiatives.

KAIA:

We're in an early adoption phase. We are having to take a leap of faith and push ahead, sometimes it does feel a little bit scary or uncertain but we've done that together, and then that's enabled us to tick boxes and actually create amazing solutions. I think the silver lining in this project is that we are going to be setting a precedent for others to follow. We're not afraid to share content and share stories and tell people how it was for us, the things that worked and the things that didn't.

Do you think Australia is ahead or behind in the retrofit space?

KAIA:

When you look at the products and materials and systems that are in place here in Australia, we are living in the dark ages. A perfect example is using these uPVC windows, which are a recycled plastic windows that got a bad name when they first came to Australia 15-20 years ago. because of the harsh UV that we have here some of the first windows that came to Australia started cracking and breaking down. But that was 20 years ago and the technology in Europe adapted for that incredibly quickly. But we as a building culture stigmatised those products. In places like Spain where they have a similarly hot climate, where these windows have been installed for 20 years, they're completely fine. I think there’s definitely a fear of change in Australia.

EMMA:

The traditional metrics used to measure the success of a project is financial return on investment and that’s been limiting. But there’s been an important shift in the last few years. I think now with the rise of impact investing, the way that you measure the success of a project is not just the financial success, it's the environmental, the social and multiple other ways that impact is measured. I think that's allowed projects of this nature to be talked about and considered by different groups which is exciting.

What are the key lessons you learned from this project that the industry should learn from?

EMMA:

My number one takeaway is that it’s okay to challenge the status quo. Finding Infinity as the lead consultant set a different way of thinking for the project team. It established a collaborative approach which created a ripple effect. And it doesn't have to be that every project needs to be led by the sustainability and environmental consultant, but that it's interesting that these small changes or challenges to the status quo do actually have a big impact.

KAIA:

The hierarchy does need to flow in that way in an environmental retrofit where you're trying to aim for high performance. Because you can't design something that looks really beautiful and then try and squeeze environmental performance into an existing building. It’s been more pragmatic to consider sustainable performance from the start and consider buildability and impact to make sure it can work, before prettying it up. It’s form and function before aesthetic.

EMMA:

The role of the architect in this project was very different to the role of an architect in a standard renovation, where they want to refurbish it and make it look pretty so it's appealing to the masses to rent at the end of the day. The challenge for Kennedy Nolan was to work with a lot of reclaimed materials and accept that they couldn't do everything they may have wanted from an aesthetic perspective. It was a real mindset shift for all of us.

Having a strong brief at the beginning of the project and having that brief communicated to the team was important. Having the right team that's invested in that brief, and is constantly checking back in throughout the process and being prepared to change old habits that are hard to change, but need to change, to enable the brief to be met.

Do you think Melbourne is ready for this kind of transformative change?

EMMA:

This transformation is necessary. There are so many conversations happening about the negative impacts of fast fashion and waste, this is exactly the same. I would love to have some sort of system where sustainable construction practice becomes accessible to more people, and they understand the benefits and how enjoyable and how challenging the process is. And I would really like to see the process we used replicated and rolled out all across Victoria. You can't un-see what we've seen, and we can't un-learn what we've learned.

KAIA:

The more these projects happen, the ripple effect will get greater and greater. I think Melbourne is ready for this transformation. We don't really have an option, we have millions of buildings in Melbourne and you can't knock every building down, send it all to landfill and start again, so this is imperative.

It’s estimated that this retrofitted building will generate more energy onsite than it consumes, reduce mains water demand by about one third and has the potential to divert 100 per cent of waste from landfill compared to the existing building. The technological innovations exist to facilitate these kinds of disruptions to the status quo, yet relational and governance processes are a hurdle to embracing big ideas like this one. If a small incremental project like this was applied to the millions of existing buildings in our cities it would create radical change.

RESOURCES

To learn more about A New Normal and the Fitzroy demonstration project see the following resources:

A New Normal

Wilderness Building Co