Sustainable design minimises storm-water pollution

Sustainable design minimises storm-water pollution

A design proposal to minimise discharge of pollutants into Wellington Harbour during heavy rainfall has won Victoria University’s supreme Benson-Cooper Award for Sustainable Design.

Nick Griffin, who graduated from Victoria University last year, won the $1600 award for his project ‘25mm – A Hydrological Opportunity’, created in the final year of his Landscape Architecture degree. He also won the Designed Landscape category of the Benson-Cooper Awards.

The award-winning concept was inspired by his research into Wellington’s waste-water infrastructure. His research found that when the capacity of the storm-water system is exceeded, the sewerage network is then used. This allows for sewerage to enter the storm-water system and be discharged into the harbour.

He says that the environmental effects are significant, with approximately 90 percent of pollutants, such as lead, copper, zinc and bacteria, rapidly transported from city surfaces into Wellington harbour by the first 25 millimetres of rain.

Mr Griffin’s proposed system integrates an innovative collection strategy with the existing storm-water infrastructure. By creating strategic storage areas throughout the catchment, the first 25 millimetres of rainwater can be captured and then treated appropriately.

“The judges felt that this was an innovative and thorough project worthy of the supreme award,” says one of the judges Maibritt Pedersen Zari, Lecturer in Sustainable Architecture at Victoria’s School of Architecture.

“We were impressed by the combination of systems understanding, technical engagement and poetic design resolution.”

The Benson-Cooper Awards are open to all students at Victoria University, with finalists selected by Faculty of Architecture and Design staff. Established in 2007 by the Benson-Cooper family of Napier, the awards aim to recognise innovative exploration into the potential of creative design and technical expertise as solutions that strive towards a sustainable future.

The other winners of the Benson-Cooper Awards for 2010 are as follows:

Benson-Cooper Awards for Sustainable Design Practice – Category Winners ($1200):
• Emily Batchelor, David Gare, Kirsty Jones, Hayley Koerbin – Built Environment for designing a retrofit of an existing building as well as a newly constructed Centre of Excellence in Clean Technologies on the Kapiti Coast. The design integrated several new sustainable technologies in innovative ways.

• Alexandra Batten – Interior Focus Award for ‘Disaster Relief Shelter’, a simple earthquake relief shelter designed to be packed flat and transported in the event of a disaster.

• Callum McLean – Building Technology Award for a ‘Bio-inspired Moisture Filter’, a simple piece of technology that can be fitted into existing ducting to reduce the moisture content of air in a heat recovery unit with no added energy input or moving parts. The technology mimics how lichen works in a natural setting to retain water.

Benson-Cooper Merit Award for Sustainable Design Practice ($200):

• John Munro, Andrew Munn, Sigourney Lovell and Darni Struijck won the merit award for their ‘Solar Decathlon Construction Project’, exploring the use of SIPs (structural insulated panels) as a construction detail for Victoria’s entry into the finals of the US Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon.

Other students shortlisted for Benson-Cooper Awards for their work were: Matthew Reid (third year Interior Architecture); Ben Allison (second year Interior Architecture); and Jaden Cairncross (third year Building Science student).

The Benson-Cooper prize winning projects are on display at the School of Architecture until 15 October.

Also on display are entrants in an exhibition entitled ‘Closing the Loops’, which displays innovative ideas for transforming waste materials that Victoria University Architecture students have developed. Two of the displayed works were awarded sponsored prizes at an awards ceremony, at the same time as the Benson-Cooper Awards. Prize winners for 2010 were:

Winstone Wallboards Prize for the best project investigating reuse of waste plasterboard ($500)
• Jayden Thompson – Jayden used hessian sacks, crushed plasterboard and a layer of soil to devise a system to help regenerate river banks, particularly those damaged by cattle.

Porirua City Council Prize for the project with the most potential to reduce waste to landfill ($500)
Cleon Ferreira – Cleon created raised garden beds out of remoulded waste polystyrene.

ENDS

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