In Australia, the Seeds of Living Retail Are About to Bloom

In Australia, the Seeds of Living Retail Are About to Bloom

The Living Future Institute of Australia (LFIA) is delighted to announce an inaugural living design competition in partnership with Frasers Property Australia. Founded upon Living Building Challenge™ (LBC) principles, the competition proposes the redevelopment of a former brickworks site in Burwood East, Melbourne, Australia. The site, slated to become a retail centre, is an opportunity for LBC concepts to inform Australian architecture. Through such a competition, LFIA aims to explore the boundaries of sustainable design within the retail environment and redefine ‘best practice’ for the sector.

Why a retail centre, you ask? In fact, retail centres represent the new frontier for Living Buildings. The LBC has been applied to extraordinary residential buildings, superb commercial offices, and remarkable educational facilities, but the retail context provides a completely different possibility to showcase what a living future could be, inspiring shoppers day in and day out. Set in the suburbs of Melbourne – a vibrant global city that continues to embrace the work of the Living Future Institute – is a community demanding better places to live, work, shop, and spend time.

As such, we are not only asking designers to demonstrate that the LBC can be applied to a retail centre, but that designers help Australia make the leap from underperforming, uninspiring buildings, to imaginative, ecologically restorative places.

Within a masterplan comprised of residential dwellings as well as leisure, entertainment and community facilities, we are asking designers around the world to provide concepts for a retail centre of approximately 12,000 sqm. The centre will include a supermarket, several specialty retail shops, a childcare facility, a pharmacy and medical centre, and associated amenities, to be serviced in an internal mall. In addition, the design should provide core food retail uses, including butchering, fruit and vegetable operations, and a strong on-site food and beverage offering that takes advantage of a unique integration with the proposed community town square. Entries for the design competition should both inspire and inform, striving to create a practical and affordable solution for a retail site while achieving Living Building Challenge standards. Therefore, this competition hopes to transform how the built retail environment is created, used, and maintained, showcasing sharable ideas to shape better places in Australia and worldwide.

Registration is open now, and submissions are due in by 12:00pm (midday) on 6th May 2016, Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST). Detailed copies of the brief and associated documents are made available to registered competition entrants.

Winning entries will receive a share of a AUD $30,000 cash prize.

To learn more and apply: https://living-future.org.au/the-brickworks-living-building-challenge-design-competition/