Design competition to bring 1970s office building back to life

A brutalist office building in Melbourne's western suburbs will be recast as Australia's most sustainable heritage-listed building in a design competition launched by the Living Future Institute of Australia (LFIA), in partnership with Development Victoria.

Architects, designers and students are invited to enter the Illuminate Living Building Challenge Design Competition, which seeks design ideas to adaptively reuse a heritage-listed building constructed in the 1970s for the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW), located in Sunshine North.

Designs must meet the precise environmental and self-sustaining standards required for Living Building Challenge Certification, including generating its own energy, and capturing and treating its own water.

The competition aims to break the misconception that only new buildings can be regenerative and bridge the gap in skills that exist within the current industry.

"The most sustainable building is one that already exists," said Vanessa Trowell, chair of the LFIA board. "We need to embrace the idea of retrofitting and reimagining an existing building to create regenerative spaces. We can't always start from scratch."

LFIA CEO Laura Hamilton-O'Hara added, "Usually the focus for the industry is on doing less bad, but actually it's about doing better, for both society and the planet. A Living Building generates its own energy using renewables, acts as part of the hydrological cycle of the site, and takes into account embodied energy in materials and tools used."

The building in Sunshine North is part of a broader Development Victoria plan to facilitate a sustainable mixed-use precinct with residential, retail and community uses.