With a usable Floor Area of 11,328 m², the Kangan Institute’s Automotive Centre of Excellence is the largest automotive training facility in the southern hemisphere and one of the first institutions granted a 5 Star Green Star Educational rating from the Green Building Council of Australia.
SBE was the ESD Consultant and Accredited Green Star Professional on the project, collaborating closely with Gray Puksand Architects from the project pitch right through to the completion of construction.
The building contains office spaces, teaching spaces and a large series of state of the art workshops and facilities designed to teach automotive industry apprentices about every stage of car development, maintenance and repair. There is even a large truck dyno located on the south side of the facility.
The design features many innovative ESD initiatives designed to increase the comfort and efficiency of the building. They include:
BATISO style activated thermal mass floor slabs decided to help maintain thermal neutrality within occupied spaces.
Night sky cooling of a large volume of captured rainwater. This ‘coolth’ is able to satisfy 46% of the annual cooling load.
Together with a 20kW PV array, chilled beams, thermal chimneys, efficient lights with smart controls, good daylighting and enhanced natural ventilation the building was calculated to achieve a 68% reduction in total energy demand.
Waterless urinals, a 130,000 litre rainwater tank for toilet flushing, use of low VOC materials, and recycling of construction and demolition waste are some of the other initiatives that contributed to its Green Star rating.