Buildings

A holistic understanding of how buildings affect people and the world’s ecosystems is lacking. This is critical if we are to produce cities that are not only sustainable, but provide thriving, healthy and resilient communities for people to live and work in. This broader, more comprehensive approach to building design and development is essential for making informed and effective decisions. Thrive, through applied research, provides the evidence base needed to support and inform the needs of our future buildings.

• Advancing new home sustainability through demand-side empowerment: investigating home buyer decision-making

  This research will provide a unique understanding of how the new home volume builders' operate as a market, acting effectively as a demand-side stakeholder, changing the concept of who is the empowered consumer in the new housing sector.

• Bull Street Terraces

  Bull Street Terraces by Crosby Architects is a medium density development in the Victorian town of Castlemaine. It has been designed to achieve the Living Building Challenge certification.

• Green Lemons? Energy efficiency disclosure and house prices

  This research provides a comprehensive analysis of property transactions in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) that demonstrates people are paying a premium for more energy efficient homes. This research found that energy efficiency ratings (EER) are reflected in house sale prices and rental transactions, suggesting a premium is associated with an upgrade in start ratings.

• Improving the Environmental Performance of Australian Construction Projects

  This project aims to investigate the environmental impacts of construction in Australia through the development of a sophisticated hybrid environmental assessment model.

• Living Well – Apartments, Comfort and Resilience in Climate Change

  Everyone has the right to live well, living in a place that is safe and comfortable. As we move into the uncertainty of climate change the increase in weather extremes, especially heat in Melbourne, is expected to have significant negative impacts on comfort for existing apartments. For these homes to be able to stay comfortable, without significant cooling energy, will be a challenge.

• Mapping embodied environmental requirements of urban building stocks

  The energy associated with the construction and operation of buildings could represent more than 50% of the total energy demand (Anderson et al. 2015) and associated environmental impacts. Reducing building energy use and related environmental impacts is therefore critical in order to mitigate climate change and global warming at both the city and global scales (IPCC 2014).

• Place Week Melbourne

  Place Week is a week‐long series of activities that support and celebrate the work of those seeking to transform our public spaces into places where communities can come together.

• Plant Life Balance Meta-analysis and App Process

  For over 50 years research has demonstrated that plants deliver benefits for urban citizens by reducing air pollution and supporting well-being. As cities in Australia increase their density it is important to understand how plants can benefit people in denser spaces, such as apartments.

• Quantifying indoor airbourne particle exposure through monitoring and modelling

  The design of the present study emerged from i) the increased concern related to air pollution events and associated health impacts due to extreme weather conditions (e.g. thunderstorm particulates and bush fire smoke); and ii) the influence of buildings on its occupants during the air pollution event are not well characterized for the Australian context.

• Regenerative development in action

  Regenerative development creates the capacity within a system for it to be vital, viable and able to constructively adapt to change. Critical to this is the engagement of people. This series of five short videos made by award winning videographer Alexander Melck demonstrates regenerative development in action in design, business and education.

• Seacombe West – Australia’s First Regenerative Community

  Seacombe West, located to the southern edge on Lake Wellington, Gippsland Lakes system, aspires to become a Regenerative Community for all of the future stakeholders of the area.

• Smart Villages

  Construction of affordable housing and related infrastructure for ‘Smart Villages’ Communities in Assam, India

• Smart Villages Assam Workshop 1

  Cross-cultural analysis and capacity building in construction management practices focusing on housing and infrastructure sectors in Assam and Australia – An initiative of ‘Smart Villages” research

• The Living Pavilion

  The Living Pavilion is a collaboration between the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub, Thrive Research Hub, The Living Stage, AILA Vic and The University of Melbourne’s New Student Precinct. It will be a temporary event space for CLIMARTE’s ‘ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019’ festival (23rd April - 19th May 2019).