Peter Jamieson: Sustainability Matters

Six years ago, Peter Jamieson, Anditi’s Managing Director had an idea. He wanted to combine his love of building, with his passion for sustainability, and create a new, unique, sustainable office space.

At its core, Anditi values innovation, collaboration, and new ideas that can help improve the world we live in. Peter took these values and poured his innovative approach to energy efficiency and sustainable practice in architecture to create a quality, modern office design.

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The new office adaptively re-uses an 88-year old heritage building formerly used as the much loved Teralba Co-op, which was associated with the former Newcastle Co-op, “The Store.”

The office incorporates many ‘green’ building features including a roof top garden, 250 solar panels, LED lighting throughout the building, extensive battery storage and an innovative water based climate control system. It uses 50% less energy than a typical office, and also features:

• Passive ventilation – air movement aided ridge windows, louvre windows, doors and
  central stairway
• 28,000 litres of rainwater, gravity fed to toilets and landscaping
• Task lighting using LED lights to minimise energy usage
• 1200m of condenser loop 3 metres below the car park
• 3800m of hydronic pipes in the bottom of thick concrete slabs to heat and cool the building
• 100m of chilled beams to offset roof heat on upper floors
• A Building Management System (BMS) that monitors room temperatures and regulates the heating and cooling system that is accessible over the internet
• 38kW of solar panels producing approximately 135,000 KWh/year of electricity
• Use of thin film solar panels
• 100kWh of battery capacity providing 10 to 20 hours of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) for server and communications

For Peter and co-owner Barbara Crossley (pictured above), it was about taking 20 years’ experience in environmental consulting, a strong engineering background, and a determination to be a positive contributor in the community, to lead by example. When asked about his inspiration for creating such a new, green space, Peter replied “Sustainability is achievable. Yes, it takes a bit of work. Yes, it takes a lot of thought. But it’s something that we should all aspire to try to achieve in the future.”

The building has won several awards for sustainability and innovation, and featured in a case study conducted by the NSW Government’s Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), as part of their ‘sustainability matters’ campaign.

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