2018 Master Builders Building Excellence Award Winners Sustainable Construction

For the third consecutive year Downer EDI Works has taken out the award for Sustainable Construction of the Year in the civil division and in March 2018 successfully placed 57,227m2 of modified capeseal on 3.1 kilometres on the northbound lanes of the Tuggeranong Parkway under a full road closure. This industry leading surfacing solution involved spraying hot binder containing scrap tyre rubber strengthened with geofabric and overlayed by modified capeseal, including suspended fibre technology. The resurfacing of the Parkway was undertaken over a single weekend, with the project finishing ahead of schedule. This resulted in reopening the road to the public seven hours ahead of the programmed time and reduced the overall closure from 53 hours to under 48 hours.

The challenge on this project was to convert an introverted, energy-guzzling, 1960’s house into a modern, energy-efficient family home with strong connections to outdoor spaces and social areas. Working with fundamentally “good bones” from both a design and thermal perspective, and enough floor area, selective internal alterations improved energy efficiency, spatial relationships, circulation and connection to the outdoors, while only adding just 1m^2 to the building’s footprint. The optimisation of thermal performance saw the energy efficiency rating of the house increased from 2.8 stars to 7.7 stars, delivering a 75% reduction in heating and cooling loads across a year in Canberra’s climate of extremes.