CASE STUDY: BOND UNIVERSITY MIRVAC SCHOOL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT BUILDING, GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA

INTRODUCTION

This article provides a case study of the sustainability journey of the Bond University Mirvac School of Sustainable Development (MSSD) building, with a particular focus on the use of the Green Building Council of Australia Green Star Education PILOT tool. The building was awarded a 6 Star rating under this tool, the highest rating possible and representing “World Leadership” in sustainable development.

The article does not aim to outline the entire process of the building, program, design, and construction; however, it focuses on the sustainability aspects of the design, the sustainability process, the sustainability features, and initiatives and the relevant lessons learned.

Bond University’s Mirvac School of Sustainable Development is one where planning, property, project management, construction management, and quantity surveying are integrated in a school of the urban environment in the context of sustainable development. The School is the first designated institute to fully integrate environmental, urban planning, property development, quantity surveying, construction management, and facilities management disciplines with the practical issues of managing economic and social viability with societal expectations. Unlike most other property planning schools around Australia that have evolved over the last 50 or so years, this School started with a blank canvas. Its philosophy is to look at where we see the built environment—the urban development—being in the future rather than where it was in the past.

The goal was to blend together the three aspects: ecological sustainability—indoor environment quality, transport, water, materials, emissions, land use and ecology—closely linked to economic and social sustainability. There was a desire from Bond University and Mirvac for a world class sustainable building as the home of the Mirvac School of Sustainable Development. This article will talk through the process using sustainable building features that were incorporated to deliver on this objective.