East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism

With increasing pressure to ensure that sustainability features in homes are commercially viable, demonstration projects are vital to highlight the real-world challenges and opportunities for innovation. This paper documents the incorporation of sustainability objectives into the “East Village at Kn...

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Main Authors: Byrne, Joshua, Taylor, Mark, Mouritz, Mike, Breadsell, Jessica
Format: Journal Article
Published: Mary Ann Liebert 2020
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80907
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author Byrne, Joshua
Taylor, Mark
Mouritz, Mike
Breadsell, Jessica
author_facet Byrne, Joshua
Taylor, Mark
Mouritz, Mike
Breadsell, Jessica
author_sort Byrne, Joshua
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description With increasing pressure to ensure that sustainability features in homes are commercially viable, demonstration projects are vital to highlight the real-world challenges and opportunities for innovation. This paper documents the incorporation of sustainability objectives into the “East Village at Knutsford” residential “living laboratory” development, within the Knutsford urban regeneration precinct, approximately 1.5 km east of the Fremantle central business district in Western Australia. The sustainability objectives for the project include being a “Net Zero Energy Development” using 100% renewable energy and maximizing the self-supply of energy, reducing mains water consumption as much as is practical, and using the landscape design to complement these objectives without compromising a best-practice urban greening outcome. The paper documents the design initiatives and strategies that have been included to achieve these objectives in a commercially viable project and the results of modelling where it has been used to test the design against the objectives to ensure their validity. The key features that have been incorporated into the townhouses component of the development are outlined, illustrating integrated design and systems thinking that builds on previous demonstration projects, incorporating solar energy storage and electric vehicle charging plus significant mains water savings by adopting water-sensitive features in the homes and the within the private and public gardens. The expected grid energy and mains water consumption levels in the homes through modelling compared to the metropolitan average is 80% lower. The project is presented as an important step in the application of available technologies and design features to meet stated sustainability objectives, highlighting the benefits of an embedded living laboratory research approach.
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publishDate 2020
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-809072021-01-08T07:54:27Z East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism Byrne, Joshua Taylor, Mark Mouritz, Mike Breadsell, Jessica With increasing pressure to ensure that sustainability features in homes are commercially viable, demonstration projects are vital to highlight the real-world challenges and opportunities for innovation. This paper documents the incorporation of sustainability objectives into the “East Village at Knutsford” residential “living laboratory” development, within the Knutsford urban regeneration precinct, approximately 1.5 km east of the Fremantle central business district in Western Australia. The sustainability objectives for the project include being a “Net Zero Energy Development” using 100% renewable energy and maximizing the self-supply of energy, reducing mains water consumption as much as is practical, and using the landscape design to complement these objectives without compromising a best-practice urban greening outcome. The paper documents the design initiatives and strategies that have been included to achieve these objectives in a commercially viable project and the results of modelling where it has been used to test the design against the objectives to ensure their validity. The key features that have been incorporated into the townhouses component of the development are outlined, illustrating integrated design and systems thinking that builds on previous demonstration projects, incorporating solar energy storage and electric vehicle charging plus significant mains water savings by adopting water-sensitive features in the homes and the within the private and public gardens. The expected grid energy and mains water consumption levels in the homes through modelling compared to the metropolitan average is 80% lower. The project is presented as an important step in the application of available technologies and design features to meet stated sustainability objectives, highlighting the benefits of an embedded living laboratory research approach. 2020 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80907 10.3390/su12166296 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Mary Ann Liebert fulltext
spellingShingle Byrne, Joshua
Taylor, Mark
Mouritz, Mike
Breadsell, Jessica
East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism
title East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism
title_full East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism
title_fullStr East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism
title_full_unstemmed East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism
title_short East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism
title_sort east village at knutsford: a case study in sustainable urbanism
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/80907