Smith Journal, Volume 11

ANDY Walker pulls into the kerb to pick me up. Rocky, his bullmastiff, stands watchfully in the back of the ute. “If you’re up for it, I was thinking of taking you to Wollumbin tomorrow,” he says, after I’ve settled in. “Early early. Dark early.”

“Sure,” I say, not sure at all. He explains: Wollumbin – or Mount Warning, as Captain Cook named it – is the old volcano north-west of Byron Bay.

“That’s where the stone comes from, man. That’s the source,” he says. “From there you can see the way the lava flowed; you can see why this area is shaped like it is. It’s all from that mountain. That’s why I’ve got a job here.”

He pauses a moment. “It’s really beautiful up there.”

Walker is a stonemason. He’s also the frontman of a stoner rock band called Fort. They don’t play so often anymore, but he’s still got the look: low-slung, skinny jeans and a metal-studded belt; a surfer’s tan, tatts and a handlebar moustache. His worn, navy t-shirt is printed with the logo for his business – Bay Area Stoneworks – and its tagline: “Let there be rock”.

“Everything we build with is volcanic,” he continues. “Wollumbin erupted and blasted basalt all over this area. Drops of molten lava fell from the sky and landed on flat surfaces and cooled.”

And then, there was rock.

“Little rocks and rocks the size of houses. You get these nice shapes and beautiful flat faces. The rocks get rolled around and weathered and worn over the years. They’re 23 million years old: they look better with age.

“I love the feel of stone,” he goes on. “It’s old. You can’t beat that feeling of working with something that’s older than anything else.”

I’ve only been in the car with Walker five minutes when I find myself thinking this thought: “Maybe I could move to Byron Bay and be a stonemason like him.”

Actually, Walker moved to Bangalow, the small town nearby. It was fifteen years ago, when he was 21 years old. He rented a room in the pub.

The son of an Air Force helicopter pilot, he’d lived “all over” growing up: Townsville, Karratha, Perth, Canberra. Nowhere more than five years.

He inherited a healthy dose of wanderlust. After a long stint overseas, and many months in Melbourne, he loaded up his 1961 Holden sedan and headed north. He wanted warmer weather and open space; he wanted to be outside; and most of all, he wanted to play music.

Walker is telling me all this as we drive. He’s giving me a tour of several jobs completed by Bay Area Stoneworks, all of which seem to be in the most outrageously beautiful places along the coast and scattered through the lush hinterland of the northern rivers.

We’ve just left a big house on Cape Byron overlooking the brilliant blue sweep of the bay, where Walker and his team recently spent six months building large stone terraces down the hill. “It was easy to get used to that view,” he says.

We take the road towards Bangalow and he points at a stone entrance to a driveway, alive with lichen and moss. “That’s the first job I worked on. It looks like it’s been there for a hundred years, right?”

It does – and appropriately so, for this is where Walker’s story takes on a timeless, almost mythical, quality:

The Young Man was travelling and searching, as young men will. Then one day in the alehouse, an Old Tradesman whispered in his ear. The next morning at dawn he took the Young Man to visit the Craftsman, Tom Stonemason, from whom he would learn.

“Instantly, I thought: ‘This is what I want to be doing’,” Walker says. “I stuck by his side for seven years.”

Just as fortuitously, Tom Stonemason loved the other kind of heavy rock, too.

Walker had started a band, inspired by the ’90s Californian stoner-rock band Kyuss. The band members all lived on farms around the hinterland, where they could rehearse long and loud, then drive to the beach and surf whenever they liked.

The guitarist, Stu Hume, began working with Tom Stonemason too. “We’d work for a month, take off for a week. Go touring, go recording. He would always let us come and go, and still keep teaching us.”

Their boss went to their gigs and even kicked in cash for band publicity. “At the bottom of posters it’d say: Proudly Supported by Tom Stonemason,” Walker says.

Fort played Splendor in the Grass, toured all over the country at metal festivals and supported bigger bands like the Black Keys, Fu Manchu, Monster Magnet, Grinspoon and even a reformed Kyuss. A review in Rolling Stone declared: “this NSW quintet wield some serious axe”.

Walker had always played music: a hot trumpet teacher had been his muse in early high school, but when she left, he bought a guitar. His high-school band, Solar Cat, supported some big Australian acts. “I’ve always loved big heavy, guitar-based rock and roll ever since I was little. I like it loud,” he says.

Something else was alluring too: “I like being in the spotlight,” Walker admits. “It’s one thing I miss. Whenever we did a gig it’d be a party, a big blow out. Next day would be like, ‘Fuck, what happened?’ That was fun.”

Around that time, he began dating his wife, Poppy, who is a filmmaker. It didn’t work out. Walker generally has the makings of a mischievous smile at the ready, and now it breaks out. “We were seeing each other briefly, but she was living a very healthy lifestyle and I was not,” he laughs.

Now, however, his long rock-and-roll locks have gone. “I guess my lifestyle has turned around. I was totally infatuated with her all along. She kept saying, ‘One day I’m going to get you to build me a stone house’. Finally, five years ago she came up here, and I said, ‘Let’s build a stone house’. She’s been here ever since.”

The band stopped touring when he and Hume decided to concentrate on their stonework. But they still play sometimes – Fort supported Monster Magnet again in April – and Walker records and composes music for films. Poppy is pregnant now, and he’s piecing together a kids’ album comprising humorous heavy rock songs, with children’s themes: “Kinda like the anti-Wiggles,” he explains. “I think it’s got legs.”

When he was a boy, Walker had a recurring dream in which he found coins on the ground. “Didn’t everybody have that dream?” he asks me. “It felt so good!”

We’re in a paddock now, collecting rocks. He’s stalking stones about 200 mm thick, with flat faces, to suit the top of a wall. “Every job is like a treasure hunt, looking for the right rock,” he explains.

Rather than buy stone in bulk, and cut it to fit the job, Walker likes to leave the stones whole, and let their shape dictate the work. Everyday, they gather their quarry from nearby fields or farms, with the farmers’ permission.

Shifting rocks is hard work. It can take a quarter of the hours on any given job. Walker is a regular visitor to Mexico – he and Poppy were married there – and when he visits the Mayan ruins, one thing he ponders is how far the stone had to travel, without the benefit of wheels and fossil fuels.

Even so, he wakes happily. Work is no burden. “In the mornings when most people are heading into town to work, I’m heading out to the hills, which is what I love.”

After the treasure hunt comes the puzzle: sifting the pile for the perfect stone for each crevice. The puzzle takes time, and that costs money. The clients of Bay Area Stonework are lawyers, financiers, jetsetters and the sons of steel barons. But unlike stonemasons past, for Walker the trade is not a matter of servitude.

“Without people who really appreciate the work I do, and if they didn’t have the money, I wouldn’t get to indulge in these great projects,” Walker says. “And they usually throw good parties as well.”

Earlier in the day, we’d visited the sumptuous estate of a banker, where the Bay Area crew had built a series of stone tracks and bridges in the forest along a river. And before that, we pulled into an old banana farm where the owner, a Hong Kong–based high-flyer, had commissioned massive stone walls and an epic staircase cutting through a hill, opening up to a panorama of the valleys and sea to the east. “My brief was to make it look like the continuation of the mountain,” Walker had explained, pointing at the cliff above us.

Most times, a one-wall job becomes two, and then a fire-pit, and then a staircase, and on and on. “People get seriously addicted to stonework,” Walker says.

Stone building – carefully constructed, massive and ageless – comprises the perfect combination of order and disorder. “It transforms a house; it can make an ordinary place look really attached to its surroundings. It’s got this way of making a new place have old character.”

Walker bought a house in Bangalow about the time Poppy moved north and the band stopped touring. He always likes to have a project on the go – mostly fixing up old Holdens – but in recent years he’s turned his hands to their house, as promised.

It’s unmistakable. There’s no flimsy front fence, only solid stone walls. Pass through the gate and you enter a large stone courtyard, bordered by stone walls, with a frangipani growing in a circle of stone. Inside, you’ll find a wide, immaculate stone chimney. Out the back, an impressive stone-clad garage.

(Poppy says: “Keep building!” Too much rock is not enough.)

It’s well before dawn, it’s raining, and we’re sitting halfway up the extinct volcano. The local Aboriginal people, the Bundjalung, request others consider not climbing Wollumbin, so we avoid the ascent to its peak.

Walker had picked me up at 3.30 am, earlier than I’d thought possible. Along the path, he paced ahead, stepping lightly through the beam of his torch.

He has been coming here ever since he moved north, usually for sunrise. On a clear day, the mountain receives the first rays to strike the continent. But today isn’t a clear day; instead, the clouds gradually shift from dark to grey to lighter grey.

The rain grows steadier and then becomes a downpour. Walker is only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but the storm doesn’t trouble him. I remember the recurring childhood dream he’d told me about yesterday – the joyful one about finding a coin. It occurs to me that it doesn’t only explain his pleasure gathering rocks, but neatly sums up his approach to life.

Slowly, the rainforest reveals itself: the tangled roots of figs; the strong, wet smell of bat shit; the bulbous, luminous fungi beneath branches; and high above, the thick green canopy.

For some humans, life is confusing; waking each morning is a rupture that never quite heals. Walker is not burdened with such fears. Sisyphus struggled with his rock. Andy Walker loves his, always has. The heavier the better.

This article was published in Smith Journal, volume 11

THERE’S a basic fact that a surprisingly large number of people haven’t yet grasped about solar energy. “We still get queries from people who get solar photovoltaics mixed up with solar water heating,” says Mick Harris, managing director of eco-retailer EnviroGroup. “It’s really a matter of understanding what you want.”

It’s a simple point, but it underscores the most important thing prospective panel purchasers need to do – research well.

Your deliberations will be detailed, from the technology and rebates to installation issues and variable electricity charges. But don’t be put off – once the panels are in place, maintenance is minimal. For at least 20 years, you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy the sunshine.

Technology

There are three common types of solar PV panels: monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin film. Most of the panels sold in Australia are of the mono and poly kind. Thin film is much less efficient – it needs nearly double the roof space of other panels – but requires far less silicon to make and has less embodied energy. Lance Turner of the Alternative Technology Association adds that there is also a hybrid panel made by Sanyo which is a combination of crystalline and thin film technologies. “These perform particularly well,” he says, “but at a price premium.”

As well as the panels on the roof your system will need an inverter, which converts the DC (direct current) electricity produced by the panels to AC (alternating current) and feeds any excess electricity into the grid.

‘Building-integrated’ photovoltaic systems such as tiles, facades or glazing are uncommon. Susan Neill, from engineering consultancy Global Sustainable Energy Solutions, says those systems are much more expensive: “It tends to be driven by airports or iconic buildings that want to make a statement by putting it in.”

Rebate madness

For the solar PV industry in Australia and for households it’s been the best of times and the worst of times. Let’s start with the worst: changes to government rebates.

The Federal Government’s cash-back rebate is based on the trading value of ‘small-scale technology certificates’ (STCs, formerly known as RECs), which are created when renewable energy systems are installed. Right now, eligible householders receive a credit of three times the certificate price, which fluctuates according to market demand. From July 1, the credit will be reduced to two, meaning the rebate for householders will fall by one-third.

Most of the incentives offered by state governments have also been cut. These feed-in tariff schemes pay people according to how much energy a household supplies to the grid. Queensland’s feed-in tariff is the last one intact – elsewhere they’ve been reduced, phased out or abolished overnight.

Tim Sonnreich, policy manager at the Clean Energy Council, says that despite these cuts there is good news for household solar PV that shouldn’t be overlooked. Overall the price hasn’t increased significantly, thanks to lower production costs and the high Australian dollar. A 1.5kW grid-connect system can cost from $1500 to $6000 installed (including the federal rebate).

“The price of solar technology has come down dramatically over the last few years,” he says. “Even five years ago, buying solar was a major financial decision, like buying a car. But now it’s in the ballpark of $2000, people put it on their credit card and get on with their lives. The market has changed dramatically.”

What size system should I get?

The answer to the all-important question of size, says Mick Harris, will become clear when you ask three additional questions. “Firstly, how much room have you got? That’s going to limit how much you can put on your house,” he explains. “Secondly, how much of your energy bill do you want to get rid of? And thirdly, what is your budget?”

Shade is death for solar panels, especially the mono and polycrystalline kind. Even a small amount of shading significantly reduces the efficiency of the whole system, so there’s no point buying one if you have a mighty big tree blocking the sun. Ideally, for a small system, you’ll need at least 10 square metres of roof space facing north.

Next, take a good look at your electricity bill and make note of how much you use. The average Australian household consumes 18 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a day, according to the Clean Energy Council. The output of panels varies throughout the country, but a 1.5kW system will offset roughly a third of the average daily consumption.

At this point in the research process, it’s wise to think more broadly about where you use the electricity you consume. If you have an electric hot water service, it probably accounts for about a quarter of your bill, Sonnreich says. “Hot water is a major expense, so if you don’t have much rooftop space, solar hot water might give you a better return than PV.”

Installation

Up to half the cost of your solar electricity system will go towards its installation, and as with any job around the house, you’ll want to make sure it’s done well.

The output of your panels will vary significantly according to their orientation, access to full sun, and whether they’re angled appropriately for your latitude. With that in mind, quiz your solar company about all these requirements, and about their installers’ experience.

To be eligible for the rebates and feed-in tariffs, you must use an installer accredited by the Clean Energy Council. “You must use an accredited installer in order to be able to access the upfront discount provided by the Small Technology Certificates (STCs) that are traded back through the renewable energy market,” says Damien Moyse from the ATA. He adds that when choosing a system and an installer, it’s best not to just choose the cheapest one. “Solar, like any other technology, depends on quality for performance, and you want a system that will generate for at least 20 to 30 years. Consider the warranties closely and be prepared to pay a little more upfront for a good-quality system that will provide you plenty of savings on your electricity bill over time.”

Susan Neill suggests that before buying you should request an indication of the panels’ performance. “Ask for a performance guarantee that the system will produce a certain number of kilowatt-hours per year, on average, for your location,” she says. “Then you’ll have the knowledge to check it yourself.” Likewise, seek a long-term warranty (up to 25 years) and make sure you keep hold of the documentation.

Energy retailers and distributors

You need to let your energy retailer know if you’re going to install a solar PV system. Many retailers will offer you a premium for the electricity you export to the electricity grid, but don’t be bamboozled by that rate alone: make sure you find out what your new tariff and fee structure will be.

“You have to ask the whole question – how much is it really going to change your bill?” Sonnreich says. “You might get a better rate for the power you export, but you might pay more for the power you import. Do the sums on everything.”

And while you’re speaking to the energy companies, ask them about your new meter – who will supply it, how will it work and how much will it cost?

Off-grid systems

Stand-alone renewable energy systems are much more expensive upfront than grid-connected systems. As well as the panels, you’ll need batteries, a regulator to manage the way they charge and possibly a backup generator.

After the Victorian bushfires in 2010, the ATA commissioned research into the cost of off-grid systems compared to grid infrastructure.

“The capital cost is high compared with grid connect,” says Damien Moyse, “but if you have an efficiently operating house, then you can set up one of these systems for $20,000 to $30,000 and it’s going to generate electricity for at least 20 years and longer.”

Is there any cause to go off-grid in the city? Smart meters now allow retailers to set time-of-use tariffs that incorporate high rates for peak time energy use. “If you are a household that cannot avoid consuming energy during these peak times, the long-term cost of installing batteries and electricity backup may become an attractive option,” Moyse says. “However, in most circumstances this will not yet be the case and a grid-connect system will still offer plenty of opportunity to avoid peak rates.”

Ask lots of questions

Some local councils or community sustainability groups still coordinate bulk purchases, though they’re less common than they once were. If you haven’t the time or the head for research, these schemes are a good source of information.

Even so, start your research with the Clean Energy Council’s consumer guide to buying solar panels. It contains a comprehensive list of questions to ask, but the legwork is up to you. “Shop around. Don’t make a snap decision,” Sonnreich suggests. “Find a company that is prepared to talk the issues through with you.”

Mick Harris also recommends some sleuthing. “There’s a mixture of players out there in the market – some of them are good and some are not so good,” he says.

If you google a solar retailer, together with the words ‘problems’ or complaints, you’ll soon find out which is which. It’s also worth checking the popular forums on the Whirlpool and ATA websites. “You can protect yourself from the worst of the companies by doing some homework online,” Harris says.

This article was published in Sanctuary Magazine.

Why should people care about peri-urban agriculture?

FOR me, it’s agriculture. It just seems that the best farmland quite often is around the city. The city starts where the best climate is, and the flat land. In British Columbia, about 35 years ago the government realised we were burning up our best farmland and that’s when they stepped in and formed an agricultural land reserve.

It’s for the security of food production for future generations. With the cost of oil rising, shipping food will be very expensive. In Canada, 75 per cent of our food comes from the States. The Americans are burning up their prime farmland. We can’t rely on another country all the time to supply our food.

Can you explain how the land reserve works?

It’s only 5 per cent of the whole land base of the province. If you have a piece of land in the reserve and you want to subdivide it, there’s a special commission set up to oversee what’s good for agriculture. So if somebody said ‘I’m growing this crop and the market is down, I want my land out of the reserve so I can survive’, they say ‘I’m sorry, you either sell it as a farm or you ride it like everybody else’. The economics don’t come into it.

I bet the farmers didn’t like that, when it was brought in?

No. But when the farmers said ‘You’re locking us in’, that government made up a formula to make sure they got a fair return on their investment. For about seven years, they paid the farmers sometimes if the market went down, and it got them onside. What it was saying to the farmers was you’re giving up some rights for the good of the community therefore we’ll help you through it. And now, you get people buying in there, but they’re buying into the agricultural land reserve, they know what the law is. It’s very difficult now for them to chop up a piece of land.

The main question people always ask is ‘Where are you going to build your houses?’ But the first thing should be, ‘How are you going to feed the people?’ If it doesn’t affect your food to take that land, that’s fine. You have to reverse it – first tell us how you’re going to feed everyone. It seems so far off now, but it’s making plans for future, that’s the hardest thing sometimes to do, and that’s what we’ve done.

How does city fringe farming compare to urban agriculture?

People are talking about urban agriculture, but really it’s not agriculture – it’s gardening. Realistically, it would take thousands of these community gardens for one farm in our Fraser Valley. The answer is at the edge where that farmland is, and keeping those farmers farming.

Is this about thinking about the food system as a whole?

One thing about food is that everybody needs it. It’s one of those few things. A shortage of food would bother people. But the food system is taken for granted. We eat three times a day and we don’t ever think about it. It’s always there. For lots of people in the world it’s never there. But, for us, we’re so healthy and rich, we’re living at probably the best time we’ve ever had and nobody believes it’s going to end.

But the other thing is that now around the world, something happens in one country and everything falls. We haven’t ever been here before, there are 7 billion people and in 2040 we’re going to be 9 billion people. We’re struggling now and about one-third of the agricultural land has problems, and desertification is increasing.

Farmland and oil go hand in hand, because as oil becomes more and more expensive, we’re going to look around and say, ‘Well, let’s grow it here’. But we’re giving away thousands of acres we could have saved.

See a video of Dave Sands speaking about the agricultural reserve, at the On the Edge forum, run by Village Well. 

IF you drive through Clyde, on the south-eastern outskirts of Melbourne, you’ll see the old farms where a new, very different, crop is being sown.

Next to the market gardens and green paddocks still lined with windbreaks are expanses of soil dotted with earthmovers and giant concrete pipes. On these properties, houses will become the next harvest of the land.

Melbourne’s urban growth boundary was extended last year and is under review yet again. In May, the state government appointed an advisory committee to recommend “logical inclusions” to the boundary in seven municipalities on the city’s fringe.

In Clyde, the City of Casey opposes any further extension (pdf), and argues instead for “logical exclusions” from last year’s ruling. In its submission to the committee, it stated that the boundary has already exceeded a sustainable limit.

Kathryn Seirlis, the council’s manager of strategic development, says the current and former governments haven’t given enough weight to the role of agriculture in the region, especially in creating employment and improving health and wellbeing.

“We think it’s critically important to protect viable, high value agricultural land for the future communities of Casey and beyond,” she says.

The controversy over Clyde fits within a larger debate about farming on the city’s fringes. The issue was the subject of a recent forum on “peri-urban agriculture”, coordinated by placemaking consultancy Village Well.

Trevor Budge, associate professor of planning at Latrobe University, argues good soil should be managed like any other resource. “If you found a supply of building sand or gravel, you wouldn’t just build over the top of it, you’d treat it as a finite resource,” he says.

“From everything we know – whether it’s climate change, peak oil, energy costs or transport costs – having productive agricultural land close to the city makes us more resilient for the future.”

Mr Budge says constant shifts and reviews have turned the urban growth boundary into a “zone of impermanence”. Many farmers and landowners outside expect to be re-zoned inside, and don’t keep investing in their land.

It’s a problem acknowledged by the Growth Areas Authority, the statutory body charged with coordinating the development of new suburbs.

“One of the problems in the past has been short term, knee-jerk reactions, with huge numbers of people all expecting make a lot of money by being [re-zoned] in the next new residential area,” says Peter Seamer, CEO of the authority.

He says the latest round of reviews is different, and will set aside enough residential land for decades to come. “The processes we’re going through will be sorted out by government in the next few months and they’ll set a very clear direction for the next 25 years,” he says.

Mr Seamer says that although “no one likes to see a reduction in farming land”, urban growth comprises a very small proportion of Victoria’s total farmland.

“The growth has got to go somewhere,” he says. “There was a crisis in the middle of last year, when prices for land went up very steeply because there was a shortage of supply, particularly in the Casey area.”

The state government has not yet released the findings of the logical inclusions process.

But the Casey council has foreshadowed using its planning tools to support farming within the growth boundary, even if its submission is rejected. Together with the Cardinia and Mornington Peninsula councils, Casey has been working on a plan to establish the Bunyip Food Belt, a zone of intensive agriculture that would draw on recycled water from the Eastern Treatment Plant.

Mr Budge accepts that Australia isn’t running short on agricultural land, but says proximity to the population makes all the difference.

“Growing food is part and parcel of the way cities operate. The better metropolitan strategies around the world make agriculture one of the core social and economic components of their plans – not something that sits off the edge and can be pushed further out,” he says.

As well as the added security afforded by a short food-supply chain, he says peri-urban farming also improves wellbeing. “Having contact with nature and an understanding of where food comes from is good for us socially and psychologically. It maintains the contact with the real world that we’ve had for 10,000 years of human history.”

Trading herbs for suburbs

IT’S the end of a normal day on the farm at Australian Fresh Leaf Herbs, in Clyde, just beyond Cranbourne.

While the packing workers tidy the cool room before heading home, banker-turned-farmer William Pham gestures at the rows of hydroponic basil in front of him. “We recycle our water, so we need one-sixteenth of the water for conventionally grown basil,” he explains.

Together with his business partner Jan Vydra and their 60 casual and full-time staff, Mr Pham produces and packages 70,000 bunches of herbs each week.

They began operations here in 2008, but their farm was included in the revised urban growth boundary in 2010. They’re looking for land elsewhere. “When we bought here, this road was empty,” Mr Pham says. “Now you can’t recognise it. The development has happened much faster than I expected.”

Mr Vydra, who was recently named the 2011 Young Australian Farmer of the Year, says he wants to stay within 40 minutes of the city. That kind of proximity is better for business: it’s easier to find workers, supplies are cheaper and more accessible, and the cost of transporting the produce is lower.

But once the boundary expands, property values rise and rates increase. “That’s what happens – you have to sell up. It’s beautiful soil around the whole area at Clyde. People have been farming it for 100 years and they have to move,” he says.

“There’s an economic benefit – we get much more money for our property – but as a community, we lose some really fertile soil and they’re going to put slabs on top of it.”

Although he can see the dilemma for planners, who want to provide affordable housing, he’s worried about food security as older farmers retire. “We need to figure out what’s being produced here and how we’re going to shift it elsewhere to make sure we keep producing food for our people.”

Mr Pham is ambivalent about the change: he says small-time farmers will disappear, but doesn’t think there’ll be any impact on shoppers. “A lot of the smaller growers will sell up, make their money and have an easier lifestyle.

“We spent a lot of money on this place, so what the heck – we may as well do it again. We’re too young to retire. We just have to move further out.”

Read this article at The Age online and watch Trevor Budge’s talk on the importance of peri-urban agriculture in Australia, at the On The Edge Forum.

The rating system is based on predicted heating and cooling requirements for your home. Depending on your location, a six-star rating means you’ll need up to a quarter less energy to stay comfortable than you would under the old five-star rules. With utility prices on the march, that equates to a hefty saving on your bills.

So how much does it cost to convert five-star plans to six stars?

New homes

In a recent study, Timothy O’Leary and Dr Martin Belusko from the University of South Australia analysed a dozen house designs offered by volume builders. Using standard materials and without any major redesigns, they found it would cost an average of $3900 to lift the plans to the new standard (PDF).

But Alison Carmichael, CEO of the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors, says it’s possible to build to six stars at no extra cost, so long as you include passive solar design techniques such as good orientation and cross-ventilation.

“You need to involve someone who understands thermal comfort right from the beginning,” she says.

If you wait until you’ve settled on the design, moving to a higher rating can get expensive. “By then, there’s usually been so much blood, sweat and tears put into the plan that you’re loathe to change anything,” Carmichael says. “To get it up to six stars, the building sustainability assessor is left with little option than to recommend expensive inclusions such double glazing.”

Retrofitting existing homes

Although the timing and details are still unclear, the federal and state governments have agreed that a dwelling’s energy efficiency should be disclosed when it is put up for sale or lease. That’s sure to provide a big incentive for homeowners to lift their green game. But is possible for every home to hit six stars?

The Moreland Energy Foundation (MEFL) and Sustainability Victoria have analysed the efficiency potential of dozens of existing houses.

The researchers surveyed each dwelling and calculated its energy rating. Then they modelled a series of upgrades to the building fabric: ceiling, wall and floor insulation, draught proofing, drapes and pelmets, external shading and double-glazed windows.

Govind Maksay, from MEFL, says that without major renovations, six stars will be very difficult to achieve in most homes.

The average upfront rating of the houses they examined was just 1.7 stars. With a full suite of retrofitting measures in place, the average jumped to 5 stars. But out of the 45 dwellings studied, only half a dozen were able to reach or exceed six stars.

In Maksay’s initial study, the full retrofitting package landed at an average cost of over $22,000. However, the changes weren’t all equal, in either impact or cost.

“On average, over 80 per cent of the rating improvement came from the insulation and comprehensive draught proofing,” he says, “but that constituted just 20 per cent of the total upgrade cost.”

In contrast, double-glazing proved highly expensive for more limited benefit.

Although these findings vary according to the dwelling and the modelling undertaken, Maksay says householders can learn important lessons from the study: focus on the fundamentals before going for trendy upgrades – seal gaps and insulate walls and ceilings.

“To really improve your star rating you have to tackle wall insulation, whether that’s with blow-in granulated mineral wool, or by removing the weatherboards or plasterboard and inserting batts.

“Insulating your ceiling and ignoring your walls is like trying to stay warm wearing a beanie, but no clothes,” he says. “The other message is that there’s a difference between wimpy and comprehensive draught sealing. You need more than just door snakes.”

Maksay adds another important caveat: all-out blitzing your home’s star rating probably isn’t the smartest way to spend your money, or save energy, because it only takes into account the building fabric. “You can reduce your energy costs cheaply in other ways, with efficient lighting, appliances and hot water systems, and by reducing standby power,” he says.

“Also, if you’re renovating, think about how you can more effectively heat and cool your house – for example, you could put a super-efficient reverse-cycle air conditioner into your living room and limit the total area you need to keep at the right temperature.”

RETROFITTING CASE STUDIES

From Sustainability Victoria’s On-Ground Assessment of the Energy Efficiency Potential of Victorian Homes.

Vermont House

Construction type: 1970s single-storey, detached brick veneer, 175 m². Suspended timber flooring.

Rating before upgrade: 1.5 stars

Rating after full upgrade: 5.3 stars

Cost for full upgrade: $45,724 (including double glazing worth $26,288, which added 0.4 stars to the rating, after drapes and pelmets)

Comments: “This home was orientated well,” Maksay says. “The long axis of the block is east-west, so it has a long northerly aspect and the living areas are situated to the north. All the utility areas are on the southern side, with a small amount of glazing. It had very good sub-floor access so it would be possible to insulate the ceiling, walls and floor to a high level.”

Coburg House

Construction type: 1930s single-storey, detached weatherboard, 108 m². Flooring partially suspended timber and partially concrete slab on ground.

Rating before upgrade: 1.2 stars

Rating after full upgrade: 3.7 stars

Cost for full upgrade: $18,376 (including double glazing worth $11,455 which added only 0.2 stars to the rating, after drapes and pelmets)

Comments: “This house is not oriented very well,” Maksay says. “It only has a couple of windows to the north and one of them is in a bedroom. Wall insulation made a significant impact here – more than doubling the star rating of the house – but there wasn’t sufficient access to install floor insulation.

“But this house is ideally suited to using an efficient gas heater in the kitchen and living space only, because that area is thermally isolated. The Vermont house is centrally heated, so even though it reached a higher star rating, it would have a much larger overall annual heating and cooling bill.”

This article was published in Sanctuary Magazine

THE eco-friendly Australian cities of the future will combine dense housing with savvy, energy-smart design. Or will they? Is there a conflict looming between the twin green goals of urban densification and widespread harvesting of the sun’s rays?

More and more people are installing solar panels and solar hot water systems, growing their own vegies and adapting their houses for passive solar gain. But as they do so, they may find their desire for direct sunlight overshadowed by bigger buildings next door.

Professor Kim Dovey, chair of architecture and urban design at the University of Melbourne, says the right to sunlight is a growing issue.

“Since the 1990s, there’s been a strong push for higher densities, often based on green arguments, such as getting more people living closer to train stations and so on. But at the same time, the solar access issue has been forgotten,” he says.

He says planning rules treat sunlight as a matter of amenity, not sustainability.

“To me, the deeper issue is that the ownership of a block of land seems to imply some kind of right to access the solar energy that comes with it,” Professor Dovey says. “And we also have a public imperative for distributed energy systems – the idea that we should generate electricity everywhere, not only in one place.”

Currently, although every level of government offers subsidies or incentives for solar panels and hot water units, there’s been no equivalent attempt to safeguard those investments against overshadowing.

Similarly, the Victorian planning controls don’t shield householders’ access to direct sunlight in the winter, the time of year when it’s needed most for passive heating.

Despite this criticism, the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development maintains that its regulations adequately protect existing north-facing windows and backyards.

Under the rules, shadow diagrams are drawn at the spring equinox, not the winter solstice – which means they don’t take account of the six months when the sun is lowest in the sky.

Seamus Haugh, a spokesperson for the department, says the current practice represents “a sensible balance”.

“In Melbourne, [using] the winter solstice would unreasonably restrict redevelopment opportunities and would significantly impact on homeowner rights to modernise existing housing,” he says.

A review of the state planning scheme is underway, and is scheduled to report its preliminary findings to the minister at the end of November.

Angela Meinke, manager of planning and building at the City of Melbourne, acknowledges that sustainability isn’t a key consideration under the rules, as they stand. “The planning scheme doesn’t address the impact you could have on green initiatives on neighbouring properties,” she says.

“The challenge we have in planning is to weigh up the rights of property owners to develop and the rights of neighbours not to be affected by development. We try to strike a balance.”

But as the risks of climate change and energy scarcity grow more pressing, it is becoming increasingly apparent that householders everywhere must adopt low-consumption, low-impact lifestyles. The notion of “balance” may need to favour sunlight over development – especially where the plans in question are only for larger houses, not more dwellings.

Professor Dovey contends that the government must “take some responsibility for a sustainable future” by planning actively, rather than prolonging the market-led approach of recent decades.

“In the middle of winter it’s very hard to avoid the blocking of sun, so there have to be compromises. I think that will mean that in any given area, the height limits ought to be reasonably flat,” he says.

“You could have a law that says properties cannot differ by more than a couple of storeys from one property to another. And that would improve the city, because it won’t be pockmarked with large towers.”

In the case of solar photovoltaic panels, Stephen Ingrouille, from Going Solar, believes overshadowing concerns can usually be solved by careful planning or by negotiation between landowners.

“You could get people to set back a little, or bevel the corners of buildings,” he suggests. “Potentially you can move solar panels to another spot, but who pays for that? What is reasonable?”

He notes that in the UK, residents have defended their solar access under the common law doctrine of Ancient lights, which gives owners of long-standing buildings a right to maintain their established level of illumination. In Australia, the courts have heard very few cases about solar access for sustainability.

As a general rule, Mr Ingrouille advises would-be customers to consider the likelihood of “overdevelopment” on the property immediately to their north. “Be mindful that might happen and try to plan for it,” he says.

There goes the sun

IN the mid-1990s, the Walsh family extended their Kensington home. With the help of their next door neighbour at the time – an architect – they designed a living area with glass doors and high windows to capture the sun.

“In winter time, it’s like a sun room in here,” says Wally Walsh. “We’ve got a grape vine to provide shade in summer, but in winter it loses all its leaves, the sun streams in and you don’t need to heat the room.”

The architect has since moved on, and the family’s new neighbours have extended twice. The most recent addition was a second storey, erected earlier this year.

The length of the block runs east to west, so the home’s northern windows look out onto the house next door. But where once they saw sky, the family now see rows of cream weatherboards.

“I came home one evening and the frame was up and I thought: ‘My God’,” Mr Walsh says. “I contacted the Melbourne City Council immediately, who told me that we had no grounds to appeal other than on the basis of heritage.”

Angela Meinke, the council’s planning and building manager, confirmed that in this case, heritage concerns were the only matter the council could consider in determining its planning permit.

The building surveyor, however, was required to assess the shadows cast on their existing north-facing windows. Unfortunately for the Walsh family, the demands of the regulations aren’t stringent enough to safeguard their winter sun.

By Mr Walsh’s reckoning, the rules favour development over energy-efficient design. “It’s going to be colder and darker in here. We’ll need to have the heating and lights on more often,” he says.

“They’re doing what they’re entitled to do, apparently. But it’s sad. You’re supposed to design your house so you get sunshine in winter and shade in the summer, aren’t you? For us, ultimately, it was a waste of time.”

Read this article at The Age online

In fact, he carries the tap and the wrench for the whole afternoon I visit, as he wanders around the factory – his new workshop and part-time home – with his elderly dog Kevin limping along behind.

When you spend time with Hatton, a self-taught furniture-maker, designer and landscaper, you get the impression he always walks with a tool in hand and a plan in mind. It’s just as well, because right now, he’s got a hell of a lot of renovating to do.

Last week, he tried welding – out of necessity, before relocating a tank. “I’ve never been scared of having a crack at something new,” he says. “That process is always really rewarding. It’s the way I approach everything: if someone else can do it, I can do it. All I’m missing is the knowledge.”

In late 2009, he bought the old butter factory on the outskirts of Newstead, a small town in central Victoria. It was constructed in 1904, a time when grazing had overtaken gold mining as the area’s main source of income. Most recently it was a candle factory, but Hatton, who still spends part of his week in Melbourne, is giving it another life.

Tap in hand, he ambles through the huge building, deciphering its curiosities and conjuring its hereafter. The places where the giant drive shafts and cream churns were located will be soon converted into apartments, common areas and exhibition spaces.

Already, the space is a designer’s dream: character literally flakes off the old tiles, bricks and beams; its varied textures are cast alternately in sunlight and shadow.

“I’m trying to make things I want to furnish this place with,” he says. “But I’ve been playing catch up with orders ever since I plonked everything down in the new workshop.”

Hatton is seriously busy, but he’s content. It wasn’t always this way.

After studying environmental management at university, he worked as government fisheries officer. Recently, Hatton recalls, his old boss contacted him, reminiscing that he’d been “a square peg in a round hole” as a public servant.

After six years, he quit and set about chiselling a niche he could fit into. He began crafting chairs from willow branches, gathering the sticks by crawling along blackberry-infested riverbanks. His choice of material had two upsides: willow is considered an environmental weed and, when he fetched it himself, it was free.

Ever since, Hatton has insisted on using recycled or reclaimed materials. He’ll buy offcuts from local timber mills, pick up couches by the side of the road or ask beekeepers for their discarded hives.

At the core of his work is a strong environmental ethic, something he ascribes to his parents, “semi-hippy birdwatchers” who dragged him “around every national park known to man” on holidays from suburban Croydon, in Melbourne’s east.

“A lot of my work is based on the principle of using the pile of materials I’ve got,” he explains. “I try to do that in the most aesthetic way, and that’s the challenge.”

Hatton’s distinctive materials, together with a DIY attitude, have become his trademark. He says he “actively avoided” studying carpentry or cabinet making.

“I try to put things together with old bolts and bits of wire instead, and that’s where the aesthetic for my furniture comes from. As soon as you go down the cabinet-maker mould, you end up making stuff like all the other cabinet-makers. A little less knowledge is sometimes better.”

In his workshop, Hatton shows me a four-poster bed he’s building. The base and slats are made from hardwood seconds and the corner uprights from unsawn Sugar Gum posts that are thin and sinewy, but hard and heavy as stone.

(A piece like this starts at about $3500, depending on the detail. A solid outdoor table, with benches, goes for about the same).

But his simple approach shouldn’t be mistaken as rough or slipshod. Behind all his work lingers a single-minded attitude to design.

“I try to make my things so they’ll last a hundred years. You always see rustic furniture that looks too heavy or clunky. I try and add classic lines to create something that’s not going to date too much,” he says.

Lately, he’s become interested in lighting: one of his fittings employs leftover landscaping netting; another, opaque plastic floral buckets. “I’m always trying to experiment with different materials so I’m not constantly doing the same thing. Everything has to have a little bit of fun or quirkiness to it, otherwise I get bored.”

Hatton’s source for the buckets-cum-lights is his partner, Katie Marx, a florist who specialises in large shows and installations. She is pregnant with the couple’s first child, due at the end of the year.

After my tour of the workshop, we all retire to the concrete slab at the back of the factory, for afternoon tea in the sun. “It was through work that we met,” Marx laughs. “I hired some logs off him – and that started the rot. I still get called ‘The Florist’.”

Recently, for Hatton’s 40^th birthday present, she tracked down an old windmill to install on the butter factory’s disused well. The only catch is that it’s still standing in a paddock about 8 kilometres away.

But that’s no worry for Hatton – it’s just one more project to complete. He’s got it on his mind, alongside the concrete air-conditioning tank he wants to convert into a swimming pool, and the handcart he wants to build so they can ride the abandoned railway line that runs nearby.

“It’s quite risky when you say, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to make things for a living’,” he says. “There are a few minor heart attacks along the way. But that just makes you resourceful.”

Just before the sun sets, he wanders off again, finally heading around the corner towards where that tap needs to go, Kevin hobbling along in his wake.

This article was published in Smith Journal, issue one

STICKYBEAK over the back fence of a typical new home – in an inner or outer suburb – and you’ll likely see this: a patio, paved and covered, with an in-built barbeque and outdoor heating. You’ll spot neat, ornamental shrubs and tidy stone gardens in narrow beds by the fence. And, if you peer down the side, you’ll spy a retractable washing line.

As our cities expand, a vast change is occurring; not only in the landscape, but also in the way we engage with outdoor space, both private and public.

Andrew Whitson, the Victorian general manager of Stockland, says that as a developer, he’s observed a clear trend towards smaller gardens in new homes.

“People still want some outdoor space and they want it to be functional and useful. But we’re all becoming time poor and we don’t want a large area to maintain. The days of dad spending the weekend out in the garden are changing,” he says.

“From what people are buying, we’re seeing that people love al fresco entertainment areas and I don’t see that changing.”

Mr Whitson says that although yards are much smaller, they’re more carefully designed. “We’re seeing fewer large trees planted and more manicured, low-maintenance areas, with paving, weather protection and heating, so they can be used year round.”

While he’s sanguine about the change, Griffith University academic Professor Tony Hall is worried about its implications. In a book published last year, called The Life and Death of the Australian Backyard, Prof Hall lamented the downsides for the community at large, including the loss of biodiversity and natural drainage, hotter cityscapes and the health impact of more indoor, passive pastimes, especially for children.

Using aerial photographs of developments around the country, he analysed the difference in backyards between older and newer subdivisions. He found that before the 1990s, suburban homes typically took up less than one-third of their lot. Newer houses, however, were much larger – covering up to two-thirds of the land.

In Victoria, the planning framework contains standards for private outdoor space in all kinds of dwellings. For detached homes and ground floor apartments, the minimum area is 40 square metres, depending on the block size. According to Prof Hall, until the last two decades, our suburban backyards were between four and ten times larger than that.

Like Mr Whitson, Prof Hall attributes “the disappearance of the backyard” to wider social changes. “Substantial sections of the population now work extended hours and have long commute times,” he writes. “Functionally, the house is seen as a place to wash and sleep… more as a financial investment than as a place to be enjoyed.”

To halt the shift to smaller backyards, he argues that planning codes should specify rear setbacks and maximum plot coverage of just over one-third.

Craig Czarny, from planning and design consultancy Hansen Partnership, agrees that the shifting balance between indoor and outdoor space has major repercussions for the way we live.

“It could mean that families spend more time inside, with children playing on their PlayStations and not spending as much time amongst nature. That has various implications for health and wellbeing,” he says.

“But you could also argue that the less space there is for private gardens, the more people will gravitate towards public spaces. I live in the inner city and I don’t have a large garden, so my children and I spend our time at the park.”

He draws on the Dutch concept of woonerf – a kind of street where pedestrians and cyclists have priority over cars. “It’s the idea that our streets are communal spaces. Yes, we share them with cars, but they are also parklands, pathways and play spaces,” he says. “As a denser city, we need to be more aware of living our lives more communally.”

Mr Czarny says the notion of the quarter acre block, so often described as intrinsic to Australian identity, actually only goes back two generations. Enabled by cheap oil and the rise of the motorcar, it too will change.

“Whilst many people will lament the loss of the private garden, the implication is that we should begin to use public space more effectively,” he says.

Recently, the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council completed the first ever survey of Melbourne’s publicly owned land. Its report revealed that the city’s public open space varies widely between municipalities: Glen Eira and Stonnington have the smallest proportion, while Nillumbik and Cardinia boast the most.

The report found that while our parks, squares and fields make a vital contribution to the city’s liveability, the amount of open space per capita will decrease over time as population grows. This will happen everywhere, but most significantly in established suburbs.

Mr Czarny says we can face the problem in two ways: by improving the quality of the outdoor areas we have, and also, by transforming utilitarian spaces, such as rooftops, decks and walkways.

“For example, we’re seeing gardens and tennis courts established on the roofs of commercial buildings, in areas formerly inhabited by air conditioning plants,” he says.

Children playing on the roof

IN the rooftop garden at The Harbour Family and Children’s Centre, at Docklands, a toddler in a yellow t-shirt is waist deep in a clump of greenery, tugging at the fronds.

The centre’s manager, Michelle Gujer, from Gowrie Victoria, approaches the boy. “Are you looking for Hoppy?” she asks. He nods, clearly chuffed to be in the thick of the garden, if somewhat perplexed as to the rabbit’s whereabouts.

“Young children learn through sensory play,” Ms Gujer explains. “So he’s really showing you exactly what this place is all about.

“The natural environment draws out their curiosity. It’s extremely important for children to be able to explore without the restriction of a confined space, especially for families who live in the inner city.”

At ground level, this part of Docklands is a dusty construction site, populated by cranes and beeping trucks. But on the roof, the air is rumbling with children’s chatter instead. Little people are marching to and fro, making mud pies, investigating the rocks along the dry creek bed and sitting beneath improbably large trees.

Matthew Mackay, from Hassell, was the project leader for roof garden, which was designed in collaboration with Children’s Landscapes Australia.

He says that although it can be complex to establish parks on roofs, he expects them to become more prominent as the city densifies.

“We need to have these kind of facilities close by, so we don’t lose touch with nature,” he says. “An important part of this project is to help children to understand natural processes and systems. We wanted to allow for as many play experiences as possible, with all kinds of materials and vegetation.”

Read this article at The Age online

Soon, I’ll publish a Greener Homes column in The Sunday Age based in part on our conversation, but here’s a longer, edited version of the interview. We chatted for so long, we even spoke about Masterchef. Carolyn loves it and loathes it. Read on to find out why…

Why do we need to think about cities and food?

In trying to describe a city through food, I’ve come to the conclusion that food – which is the most important thing in all our lives – has been sidelined, culturally, politically, economically and mentally. We’ve constructed this bizarre idea that food should be cheap and convenient, which it clearly isn’t and shouldn’t be. We’ve lost our sense of the true value of food basically. We externalise all its true costs.

It’s also the case that about a billion people globally don’t have access to food. They’re hungry. But actually a large proportion of that is directly attributable to the globalised industrial food system. Demonstrably there’s more food available globally at the moment than we need, but it’s not reaching everybody.

Because I’m an architect, I’m interested in how those iniquities of the food system relate to cities. I talk about what I call the urban paradox, which is essentially that as humans we have two key needs: sociability (each other) and sustenance (all the natural resources necessary to sustain us, of which food is a key element). The urban paradox comes from the fact that if we live together in large blobs in order to be sociable, if we gather in cities, then we get further and further away from the sources of our sustenance and there’s no solution to this.

What’s the role of architecture and design in responding to this problem?

Is it right that we design houses that don’t have a kitchen, as we now do in the UK? Because, basically, people aren’t cooking, so don’t bother to get them a kitchen. That’s a design issue. If you start saying food is important, you start asking: How do we design the food system so that it is equitable? How do we design the whole journey of food, from the producer to the consumer?

In the case of the pre-industrial world, the countryside was basically a short little chain where you had multipurpose farms and people living nearby and you walked and got it. Now we have these global systems. That’s a design problem because frankly the way we’ve got it set up at the moment has been designed by people who are not designers of society, they’re designers of food systems. I’m saying we have to bring the question of how food travels, how food is produced, how it is bought and sold, directly into the architectural and urban design frame.

People talk about eco-cities and they go on about the u-values and saving water, but the food comes from the supermarket. That’s not an eco-city. If you want to design an eco-city, food is central to it. We have to eat every day – where’s it coming from? Food and agriculture, together, account for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions currently, so if you’re talking about the environment, you have to be talking about food.

I’m not saying that cities should grow all of their own food inside the city, because that is the definition of the countryside. But what is that balance? There are so many models that begin to address how you get a balance between urbanity and rurality.

What model are we using now, and what alternatives are there?

At one end of the possibilities is that we all move to Shanghai and we make Brazil the farm. Behind the global industrial food system model is the logic that you live in urban blobs of up to 30 million people and the farm is thousands of miles away and it uses mono-cultural production.

At the other end, we all go back to being farmers, which is what Frank Lloyd Wright was suggesting with his Broadacre City concept. He said we’ve got to stop building cities altogether, we’ve got to cover the whole of America in little farmsteads and everybody has got to go back to growing their own food.

I’m very interested in solutions that somehow look at the middle ground. In Ebenezer Howard’s garden city model, people would live in urban blobs of up to 30,000 people, with productive farmland around and then a network created with railways, and that gives you the urbanity.

So what kinds of things can people do to make change?

There’s a series of things that can be done at all levels. If you live in suburbia, grow your own. When you think about it, low-density suburbia is fertile land that has just had houses built on it. So there’s capacity for people to do fairly serious home food production in their gardens, which they probably don’t use anyway.

If you have a compact urban core, with farmland nearby then you can create networks that allow producers and consumers to come together. This is the Slow Food ‘co-producer’ idea. Carlo Petrini talks about consumers becoming co-producers. You become aware of food and where it’s been produced, and through your choices you actively promote ethical, local, seasonal good food.

If you go to one supermarket and get all your food from there, it’s got an unacceptable level of control over your life. In the middle aisles of the supermarket, where all the packaged and processed food is, it’s very likely that unless it says explicitly on the label that it is sustainably and ethically sourced, that it isn’t. Once you start to understand that the food you’re buying is not good, you actually start looking for other sources.

There are many models for how can we get together and use our buying power to create alternative, better food networks. In the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn every member works a four-hour shift every month. And so the people own the supermarket. Now it’s got 14,000 members and it’s been going for 38 years.

It’s a model that’s now being copied in London by The People’s Supermarket. These are the models that hopefully will start to scale up. But it is about people getting interested in food – not just what is in the food, but the social and political implications of the way we eat food, and becoming proactive about changing it.

If you’re operating at the global scale, which all cities do, then you begin to use your city-wide power to question the international food system and the political and economic frameworks that allow it to have such free reign.

Toronto has a food policy council, which means that any law that is passed in Toronto it has to go through the food policy council first and the implications for the food system are addressed before that legislation is passed.

Masterchef has been hugely popular in Australia, but a supermarket sponsors it. Can these kinds of shows help change the food culture?

I’m a Masterchef addict – I’ve watched every episode that’s ever been broadcast. I always call programs like Masterchef ‘food porn’, because people go to the supermarket, buy the cheapest possible, hideous ready-meal and then they sit in front of these programs eating crap and watching somebody cooking incredible food.

I’m afraid the more cookery programs are on television, the more it’s a sign there’s something wrong in the food culture. There’s a complete disjunction. If you go to countries like France or Italy, where there’s still a reasonable cooking culture, people don’t sit and watch chefs on television because why on earth would you do that? They just do it themselves. It’s a symptom of the problem, really. I do still love the program, but I also cook.

In 2005 Paul Myors, from EnergyAustralia, investigated the carbon emissions of different kinds of housing for the NSW Department of Planning (PDF). Surprisingly, he found that apartment-dwellers account for more greenhouse gas emissions than residents in detached housing (not including transportation).

Myors laid the blame at the energy consumption of common areas, together with lower occupancy rates in apartments.

Michael Buxton, professor of environment and planning at RMIT, confirms that high-rise residential buildings – above about nine storeys – tend to be very poor performers. “That’s partly because they often use a lot of glass in construction,” he says. “But they also have lifts, big foyers and lots of large spaces that have to be heated, as well as other facilities like gyms and pools.”

“The best energy performance comes from attached buildings such as townhouses and villas – your classic medium density,” Buxton says. According to Myors’ research, a typical townhouse produces about half the carbon emissions of a high-rise apartment.

So what can eco-minded apartment dwellers do to lift their game?

This article explores the ways you can go green in common. I’ll bypass the standard steps individuals can take within their own walls, and focus on the measures that transform the building as a whole.

Owners corporations

If retrofitting your own home looks confusing, the added challenge of common property can be mind-boggling. “With collective decision-making and volunteer committees, there’s a whole layer of complexity that gets in the way of change,” says Christine Byrne, founder of eco-website Green Strata.

As a first step, she suggests green-minded strata-title owners join the management committee of their building. “If you’re on the committee, it’s easier to get access to information and put items on agendas,” she says. (The task is harder for renters; unfortunately, you’ll have to convince owners to take up the case for you.)

Once you’re there, Byrne suggests getting a picture of exactly what you’re all consuming. The best way to do that is by commissioning an environmental audit of the building. At the least, make sure you’re actually seeing your bills, not just paying them automatically.

“Start to make a list of what’s happening in your building and work through the options,” she says. “The bigger your building, the more you can do, because the greater your water and energy consumption. With smaller buildings the options might be things like double-glazing, waste and composting.”

Lighting

As in any existing home or office, improving lighting efficiency is the easiest step – and some changes will cost nothing at all.

In a case study detailed on Green Strata, Nexus apartments in St Leonards, Sydney, found the fluorescent globes in its car park were illuminating the space well beyond what was necessary. So the building manager simply removed almost half the tubes.

“Walk around your building and look at every light,” suggests Byrne. “Can outdoor lights be solar lights? Consider timers, motion sensors and LEDs – for every space there’s a different solution. De-lamping is an easy step, but you have to make sure the level of lighting still complies with Australian Standards.”

Nexus also installed day/night detectors for the compact fluorescent globes under its awnings, as well as motion sensors in the plant and utility rooms. Both measures meant that the lights no longer ran 24-hours a day. The cost is expected to be recouped in savings within 12 months.

Water

In buildings taller than three storeys, water consumption packs a double-whammy. Each drop has an associated energy cost for pumping (as well as the energy cost for heating it). And if that’s not concern enough, in most apartments, residents don’t have separate water meters.

“People aren’t paying for water based on their own consumption,” says Byrne. “The water use of some of these big buildings is quite horrific and it can be very poor in the older ones as well.”

While this is a problem, it’s also an opportunity for serious savings. Miramar Apartments, a 38-storey building in the Sydney CBD, undertook an audit by Sydney Water. The assessment identified major leaks and found that most tap fittings and showerheads were inefficient. Each apartment was retrofitted by the utility under its WaterFix program (which costs as little as $22 per dwelling).

For measures that totalled about $7000, the building cut its water use by one-fifth. It saves about $64,000 each year on water and energy bills combined.

“We’re starting to see owners corporations agreeing to pay for the WaterFix,” Byrne says. “You have to do annual fire inspections, so at the same time, why not do an annual water inspection?”

Hot water

If you have to wait a long time for hot water, it’s likely there’s something amiss in the pipes. Many large buildings have centralised hot water that uses a ring main system – a pipe that loops from the boiler, past all levels and back again.

In this kind of system, broken valves, cross-connections and lack of insulation on pipes can cause a lot waste.

The Sustainable Living in the City trial, run by the Melbourne City Council in 2008, found that some residents in high-rise apartment buildings were waiting up to ten minutes for their hot water to flow.

Dorothy LeClaire oversees the owners corporation department at from Melbourne in the City Management, which manages three of the buildings that took part in the trial. One of the key recommendations was that plumbers assess the ring main system. And for some residents there was an instant benefit: immediate hot water.

“When you do ring main balancing, the hot water comes a lot quicker,” she says. “It saves water, obviously – there’s less cold water going down the drain. But it also saves energy because you have to heat less water.

Waste

When Melbourne City Councillor Cathy Oke moved into her CBD apartment, she found there was no recycling collection at all. “Residential recycling rates in the city are terrible,” she says.

But it’s not just city apartments that don’t get it right. In most multi-dwelling blocks, recycling is less convenient than in stand-alone dwellings. Without dedicated areas and separate chute systems, bins usually become a jumble of rubbish and recyclables.

In Oke’s building, recycling bins have been moved off each floor and she uses a special container, supplied by the council, to sort and transport her recyclables.

“It’s like a funky yellow shopping basket that’s easily tip-able. It fits neatly in my small kitchen,” she says. “If you move the recycle bins to reduce contamination, you have to make it easy to go to those locations.”

The best method will vary from building to building, depending on the space: the key is to make the chore as convenient as possible. Good signage, with colour coding and clear instructions can help focus the most absent-minded residents, so try asking your local council for education material.

Composting is always tricky in apartments, but to encourage residents, owners corporations can organise bulk purchase of worm farms or Bokashi Buckets, together with a workshop to get people started. In some buildings, enthusiastic residents have established communal composting on shared garden space.

Case study: Signature Apartments

At the suggestion of a resident, Signature Apartments turned to technology to create a sense of community. The building, in Redfern, Sydney, has created its own Facebook page.

Robert Goodall, an apartment owner and the chairperson of Signature’s management committee, is one of two people who moderate the page.

“There are 100 units in our building. A lot of us felt that within apartment buildings nobody ever knows their neighbours,” he says.

“We thought Facebook would be a way to get feedback on how the building was going. And for greening the apartments, we could post ideas and get comments. We were looking at installing a communal compost bin to reduce our waste and when posted that we got lots of positive responses.”

For now, about fifty people ‘like’ the page, and Goodall says many more visit it regularly. Among other things, residents have used it to borrow and lend things, and to recycle unwanted furniture.

He has also used Facebook to promote the building’s bike room. Low-impact transportation is one clear advantage apartment-dwellers have over suburban householders – they’re usually much closer to shops, workplaces and public transport. But when it comes to bike-friendly infrastructure, most buildings still don’t provide the goods.

A bike room had been planned for Signature Apartments, but when residents moved in, it hadn’t been fitted out. The committee conducted research on racks, layouts and costs.

“There are a lot of options out there. The internet is a good place to do a general browse and see what you can find,” Goodall says.

“Having the room is good because it takes the bikes out of all the common areas where people were locking them. And for riders, it gives us a safe place to store our bikes.”

This article was published by Sanctuary Magazine