Abode Hotel gets green star rating
Australia has its first Green Star rated hotel.
The Green Building Council of Australia gave the Abode Hotel Woden, created out of old office stock in Canberra, a four-star Green Star energy rating for its design, construction and operation.
The hotel is located at was one time known as Juliana House where the Commonwealth Health and Ageing offices were located. The site stood vacant until Geocon purchased the building to turn it into a 152-room hotel.
The council’s director of research. Helen Bell, said the Abode’s success demonstrated that some of the most sustainable buildings were those that had already been built. All up, transforming a vacant and disused office building into a thriving hotel showed how these sorts of sites could be effectively be reused.
"As Canberra evolves and as the ACT government continues its ambitious urban renewal agenda, this approach showcases how smart, sustainable thinking can help us revitalise tired parts of our city," Ms Bell told the Australian Financial Review.
Geocon managing director Nick Georgalis said opting for adaptive reuse rather than a knockdown-rebuild option to create a sustainable building was a significant challenge
"It was a challenging proposition because we were new to the Green Star process and at the time there was no rating tool for hotels," Mr Georgalis told the Australian Financial Review.
"Because this was an adaptive reuse we were constrained around some of the environmental efficiencies we could achieve, such as optimising the facade, but we nonetheless delivered a standout result which demonstrates best-practice in sustainability."
The Abode could be part of a new trend in the ACT with Eclipse House, an 11-storey office building now being turned into a $40 million hotel.
The chief minister Andrew Barr said other office buildings in Canberra could be reused as hotels and he believed the trend would pick up.
There's certainly demand for new hotel product, we're boosting our tourism promotion activities and you've got the direct [international] flights," Mr Barr told the Australian Financial Review. "That seems to be a mix of ingredients that lends itself to more adaptive reuse."
by Leon Gettler, May 31st 2016
