The Sustainability Awards is Australia’s longest running and most prestigious awards program dedicated to celebrating excellence in sustainable design and architecture.

This year’s awards recognise projects across nine distinct categories, from commercial architecture to hospitality and tourism, as well as three special awards for innovation, and one people award for an emerging sustainable designer.

Woods Bagot’s fitout for ANZ Adelaide has been shortlisted for the “Interior Design” category, which honours renovations or fitouts of interiors of existing buildings where sustainability has been considered a core design principle. Criteria influencing the jury’s selection included efficient and effective use of space; the use of construction materials with low environmental impact; minimal waste and pollution in construction; and overall efficient energy use.

ANZ’s new Adelaide headquarters is located on level 18 of 83 Pirie Street – a Woods Bagot-designed, 5-star Greenstar rated office building achieving world-class environmental standards. The client consciously selected the building for its new headquarters for its high sustainability credentials, which aligned with the organisation’s values for sustainability and innovation.

“W-B is incredibly proud of the world-class sustainability achievements of 83 Pirie Street,” says Woods Bagot Principal Rosina Di Maria. “Having the opportunity to design an interior fitout within this building enabled our team to reinforce those sustainability principles for the ANZ workplace, championing a circular-economy design approach. 

“It was rewarding to collaborate with a client whose values on sustainability aligned with our own,” continues Di Maria. “ANZ is an organisation that reflects their sustainability strategies in the design of their workplace environment.” 

The 1,780-square-metre space embraces sustainable, inclusive and engaging workplace principles, embedded with flexibility considerations enabling the space to adapt with changing business requirements.

Woods Bagot designers used the Xframe Circular Building System, implemented in all ANZ retail branches; this building system is a circular-economy wall-framing technology that enables easy disassembly and modifications without the generation of waste in lieu of traditional partition construction methods.

The ANZ Adelaide fitout was the first workplace project in Australia to use the Xframe Circular Building System for the partitioning system throughout the entire project over traditional partition construction methods. This resulted in significant waste reduction onsite, from packaging materials to air pollution, due to the modular nature of the systems and their offsite fabrication.

“It was inspiring to work with a client bold enough to experiment and innovate with new construction methodologies,” says Di Maria. “We took a system that had ANZ had previously only used in branches, and we upscaled and modified it for the commercial office space.” 

Woods Bagot designers overlaid the project with strong biophilic principles by integrating dense planting throughout the fitout, resulting in improved indoor air quality and increased employee wellness and productivity. By strategically positioning major work zones adjacent to the facades, these workstations benefitted from access to natural light so supplementary lighting would not be required.

Woods Bagot also retained and reused existing materials to reduce the footprint of the fitout, including the retention of 65 percent of the base building ceiling tile system and 50 percent of the carpet tile selection. Wood Bagot Associate and project leader Hayley Packer said it was “incredibly rewarding” to work with a client that supported a local studio and showcased Adelaide innovation.

“Using the Xframe system made us think about how prefabrication and local manufacture can play a part in our design process to reduce carbon emissions across a project,” says Packer, adding that the Xframe systems were prefabricated at Tonsley Park Redevelopment Main Assembly Building, an adaptive reuse project also completed by Woods Bagot. 

“We also researched into ‘buy-back’ schemes offered by many companies to repurpose their products when they reach the end of their lifecycle. These can be recycled and repurposed for second uses in other projects.”

“For ANZ Adelaide, we also looked to existing furniture to consider how we could best utilise these to reduce waste and carbon emissions and provide a cost-effective design solution by giving a new life to these preloved products,” continues Packer.  

The winners of the Sustainability Awards will be announced on 14 November 2024 at the Sustainability Awards Gala at Sydney Town Hall. The awards gala follows the day-long Sustainability Summit, presented by industry experts who aim to educate and inspire curiosity for learnings within the design community. Read more. 

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Isla Sutherland
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