Premier’s Design Award 2012 Finalist

Innovation & Excellence Awards 2012 - Property Council of Australia Nepean Award for Innovation

ARBS Awards 2012 - HVAC Project Excellence Award

National Master Builder’s Awards 2011 - Boral National Environment and Energy Efficiency Award

BPN Sustainability Awards 2011 - Large Commercial Award & Best of the Best’ Award

Australian Property Industry Awards 2011 - Presidents Award

Victorian Architecture Awards 2011 - Award for Sustainable Architecture

Premier’s Sustainability Award 2011 - Built Environment Award & Products or Services Award

FSC Developer of the Year 2011

Pixel 100% FSC Certified

Australian Business Awards 2011 - Best Eco Product – Pixelcrete

Master Builders Association Awards (Vic) 2011 - Best Sustainable Building

Melbourne Award 2011 - Contribution to Sustainability – Corporate

Green Building Award, New Buildings - Asia Pacific, Commercial Project Merit Award 2010

Banksia Award for Built Environment - Harmonious Man Made Landscapes 2010

Australian Private Business Award 2011 - Finalist

United Nations Association of Australia (Vic) 2011 - Finalist World Environment Day

<p>Located on a key urban site at the former CUB Brewery, Pixel Building is one of Melbourne and Australia’s most significant and ambitious projects. Scoring a perfect 105 Green Star points and 105 LEED points, in 2009 Pixel earned the prestigious title of Australia’s first carbon neutral office building, generating all its own power and water on site.</p>
<p>Pixel Building was designed as a ‘Future Office’ &#8211; a prototype for all the commercial buildings that have followed, addressing a carbon constrained environment that demands greater focus on energy efficiency. As a prototype, Pixel enabled analysis of the ongoing implications of new technologies in the commercial building sector.</p>
<p>The most publicly visible element is Pixel’s colourful facade. A simple but intricate assembly of zero waste, recycled colour panels providing maximised daylight, shade, views and glare control.</p>
<p>The panels are supported by the Living Edge spandrels which create shading and grey water treatment as well as providing immediate personal greenery to every office floor. The facade wraps continuously around Pixel creating a vibrant and unique identity.</p>
<p>Pixel has achieved a perfect score of 105 under the Greenstar rating system, with 75 points the benchmark for 6 Star Greenstar, including all five points for innovation, equating to world leadership. Included in Pixel’s five innovation points were points for carbon neutrality, a vacuum toilet system, the anaerobic digestion system and reduced car parking.</p>
<p>The Pixel Building also achieved a perfect 105 points under the US LEED rating scheme making it the highest rating building certified for LEED anywhere in the world at the time. As rating systems evolve and challengers abound, Pixel rightly no longer holds the title of “highest rated building” but retains its status as an iconic innovation leader in this space, and a demonstration of how we can all use exceptional design thinking to take on the colossal environmental challenges we face today.</p>
<p>See more information on Pixel Building via the Research button.</p>


Traditional Custodians of the Land

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A man walks past the Pixel Building at street level.

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Interior view of the Pixel Building Facade.

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Detail sketch of the facade system on the Pixel Building.

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Edge detail sketch of the Pixel Building.

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Pixel Building green roof with PV panels and wind turbines.

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<h6>Facade Design</h6>
<p>The original project brief specified a high-performance building without dictating style. At the time of the project’s inception, sustainable architecture was expressed quite explicitly – by either externalising the internal operating systems on the facade, or using materiality to create a permaculture of timber and vines. Precursors to Pixel looked green, a trend this building aimed to buck through its colourful facade.</p>
<p>Looking to reduce the material waste from the project, a geometric system for the facade panel shapes was devised from the Cairo tile pattern &#8211; a tessellation of irregular pentagons that overlap to fill a shape. A nod to the previously completed studio505 project, <a href="https://wp.db-a.co/projects/suzhou-scac/">Suzhou Science and Cultural Arts Centre</a>, this technique allowed standard rectangular panels to be divided and cut to form the cladding with nearly zero wastage.</p>
<p>Using leftover coloured panels from a major cladding supplier, the tiling pattern was mapped onto the panels then digitally distributed on the northern, western and southern elevations to achieve optimal daylight, shade, solar thermal exposure, and appearance.</p>
<p>The Pixel Building is an easily identifiable Melbourne landmark. Its striking facade has attracted attention worldwide and become symbol of environmentally sustainable design. The building offers a successful alternative to the green design style of wood and climbers, diverting the path towards something more contemporary, avoiding the trap of ‘style’ around sustainability.</p>
<h6>Pixelcrete</h6>
<p>In pursuit of carbon neutrality, studio505 and Grocon developed a new concrete composition known as Pixelcrete that significantly reduced the embodied carbon and use of virgin materials commonly associated with the production of concrete. This innovative new material used 60% alternative concrete and 100% reclaimed materials as aggregate. A life cycle study of Pixelcrete completed by RMIT University found the concrete mix lowered global warming potential up to 48.9% and delivered up to 41% less embodied energy compared to the standard mix. At the time of construction, Pixelcrete was the greenest concrete in Australia, exceeding the maximum points awarded by the Green Building Council’s rating tool.</p>
<h6>Heating and Cooling</h6>
<p>The building was designed to rely on passive heating and cooling techniques, with all additional mechanical systems powered by energy generated on site. This resulted in 100% fresh outside air being distributed throughout the building via underfloor air vents, with a heat exchange unit used to regulate air temperature and exhaust any used air. The concrete ceilings provided radiant and conventional cooling by piping water through the slabs, with an automatic system also in place to open windows on cool nights and purge the hot air. A gas-fired absorption chiller utilising biogas created onsite from blackwater waste, provided heating and cooling to the building. The system also uses ammonia as the refrigerant, releasing no emissions that may harm the ozone layer or cause legionella.</p>
<h6>Water Systems</h6>
<p>At the time of construction, Australia was in the middle of one of the worst droughts on record, with the country experiencing extreme water shortage and below average rainfall from 2001-2009. A nationwide push for water conservation and collection drove the decision to design Pixel as a water balanced building, meaning that water used would not exceed water collected, with no need to be connected to the mains water supply.</p>
<p>Pixel harnesses rainwater collected from the green roof to supply the entire building with water, forming the Pixel Cycle &#8211; all water collected and used within the building completes a full loop of use through storage, recycling and treatment of the water. Rainwater is first used to irrigate the roof top garden beds, then it is stored and treated to potable water standards. It is then redistributed to the hot water storage, showers, sinks and toilets. The used water is recycled, with greywater from the showers and sinks filtered through the reed beds (or living edges), and the blackwater used to produce gas to heat the hot water system.</p>
<h6>Vacuum Toilet Technology</h6>
<p>Pixel Building deploys vacuum toilets to dispose of sewer waste and avoid blackwater treatment. Instead of being sent directly to the city sewer system, the concentrated vacuum waste is instead first diverted into an anaerobic digester to convert it into energy over a fifteen-day cycle to produce biogas. It is then piped to the gas-fired domestic hot water unit to supply the entire building with hot water without being connect to the mains gas supply.</p>
<h6>Green Roof</h6>
<p>Furthering its green ambitions, Pixel’s rooftop features fixed and tracking photovoltaic panels, vertical wind turbines and an extensive green roof. Pixel has been designed to capture, filter and process rainwater via its green roof and water storage systems. The native plants also reintroduce biodiversity to the dense cityscape, all the while helping combat urban heat island effect and providing greater insulation to the structure.</p>
<h6>Zero+</h6>
<p>Pixel achieves an annual greenhouse gas emissions of negative 21kg CO2/m2 per year.</p>
<p>The project was designed to be Australia’s first carbon neutral office building. To achieve this, the building directly offsets both its operational and embodied carbon emissions through on-site renewable energy, as well as feeds any generated surplus of energy back to the grid. The project extends beyond carbon zero design (rather than aspire to only offset the operational carbon emissions of the base building) and as well “pays back” the carbon used to produce the building over a 50-year life cycle.</p>
<h6>Research Enquiries</h6>
<p>At Decibel Architecture, sharing knowledge and continued learning are key parts of our practice. We are always more than happy to share our experience on Pixel Building or any of the other industry-leading sustainability examples showcased on our website. If you would like more information, please contact our studio via email: mail@db-a.co.</p>
