architecture + urban design
architecture + urban design
The Ecovillage at Currumbin has won 33 awards for embodying the utmost in sustainable development principles, including the FIABCI Prix D’Excellence Award for World’s Best Environmental Development in 2008.
We are proud to have upheld the Ecovillage’s pioneering sustainability standards in all our work for Landmatters Currumbin, from masterplan and code development to individual home designs.
Our co-drafted Architectural and Landscape Code, later branded as Code Green, served as the foundation for the new community, promoting environmental protection, resource management and social cohesion.
We also delivered the Ecovillage’s Lot Evaluations, which define specific site requirements for each home parcel (such as limited fencing and designated open spaces for household edible gardens) to ensure the sustainability outcomes established by the Landmatters Currumbin vision.
The building codes which encourage sustainable building practices reduce ongoing operation costs to the point where most residents have little to no electricity bills, and all homes are 100% self-sufficient for water.
One of the homes we designed at the Ecovillage served as an academic case study on positive energy homes, or homes that create more energy than they use.
We are proud to have had significant involvement with this world-class sustainable community, including 140 lot evaluations, 50 dwelling approvals, 6 approved house designs and 3 constructed homes.
The Helen Josephson Trophy for Innovation in Urban Design acknowledges innovation in urban design – a project or place that becomes an exemplar for others – something that lifts urban design in this city and sets and example for the future. I class this award as one of the most prestigious available. And so I have taken the liberty afforded to me as Chief Judge to award this project the very real and very prestigious honour of the Helen Josephson Trophy … to the project which I believe embodies all the principles we as a jury agreed were the most important – community, sustainability, responsibility, exemplar design – by displaying a superb use of art, design, community engagement, ecology, connectivity, adaptability and safety. To the project which showcases world’s best practice. To the project which is a benchmark for the future.
The jury were impressed by a commitment to address all principles of good urban design. They praised efforts to build a true community, with a focus on ecological, social and economic sustainability. Extensive international research was contributed to an outstanding development, which represents it environment and the needs of residents. The panel felt the Ecovillage would become an outstanding model for sustainable development.
The Sustainable City XIV | G Passerini, 2020
Code Green | The Sustainable City | Amy Degenhart, May 2012
Positive-energy homes: impacts on, and implications for, ecologically sustainable urban design | Urban Design International | Wendy Miller & Laurie Buys, February 2012
Anatomy of a sub-tropical Positive Energy Home (PEH) | Solar Energy | Wendy Miller & Laurie Buys, September 2011