It’s a cool Friday afternoon and I’m sitting in a spacious café in Northbridge with John Frost, an architect who has been lecturing on interior design at the Central Institute of Technology (formerly Central TAFE) since 2002. For the past six months, Frost has also been teaching sustainable design.
“It’s an issue in design which is going to dominate the 21st Century. That’s what I feel. Whatever happens, whether the climate change is a natural process or caused by humans, I think there’s every chance it’s going to be quite serious for the whole planet, “ he explains to me. People have begun to be particularly aware of energy and water consumption and the origin and recyclability of materials involved in building. This awareness has brought the profession of interior designers into focus. Until recently, interior design as a profession, while important, was secondary to professions such as engineering.
‘Up until the end of the century, Interior Design was really quite a limited field,’ Frost tells me. Before the relatively recent focus on the environment, people were less concerned with the sustainability of buildings, so things like air conditioning, which consume a lot of energy, were installed automatically. Now, ‘with climate change, people are going to have to be really aware and really conscious of how they design the insides of buildings.’ Things like the effective use of windows to let in or keep out natural light are being realised as important and interior designers are playing a prominent role in controlling the interior quality of the building.
Environmental and climate concerns are changing our living, working and playing environments. Changes are being made not only to the structure and the layout of buildings but especially to the materials being used to construct these buildings. Recycled and recyclable materials have received much publicity but they are more than just a fad – they’re a permanent and prominent change.
At 100 Saint Georges Terrace, at the back of the new Murray Street mall, an exciting new structure called Greenhouse is being built. Designed by Joost Bakker, it will be made entirely of natural, recyclable and reclaimed material, with awareness of a greater sustainability in mind. The structure is being made of recyclable steel frame, straw for natural insulation and the walls will be clad with terracotta pots of strawberry plants. Food will be served made from vegetables freshly grown in the rooftop garden. Another new building, One40william Street, the massive structure being constructed across heritage space in the CBD, actually has a five star Green Rating.
In the past, designers have been conscious of the cradle to grave life cycle. But today, what designers try to do is take the material and when it comes to the end of its useful life, it is recycled it into another form; cradle to cradle.
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