I’ve started working on a real retrofit project for an 18-year-old Art Building at Melbourne High School, with mindset guidance and tech support from SBE.
After I learned how to use Better Building (formerly Speckel), I’ve been developing a calibrated base model to generate the building’s energy performance, and testing a range of retrofit initiatives: Lighting, glazing, daylight, building fabric, renewable energy.
A few things I’ve taken away from the process so far:
- Always come back to the core project goals
- Prioritise strategies based on justified decisions
- Translating client needs into workflows is a big part of the process
The project is still in progress, right now I’m deep in the evidence based analysis, working through a bunch of energy data to identify opportunities (probably the most fun part!).
I am really grateful for the mentorship of SBE , bouncing around ESD ideas each week. It’s been incredibly valuable for someone like me who is genuinely drawn to the process of measuring sustainability in the built environment.