Challenge like no other

Even a walk through the leaf-shaped car park is dotted with native prairie plantings. Or New Zealand’s Te Kura Whare, “the house that we built”, a cultural and social centre belonging to the people of Tūhoe and a place for residents of the Tāneatua Township, who can walk or cycle through native forest to the activities or events held on site.

At Burwood Brickworks, the first retail development in the world to aim for Living Building Challenge® certification, the shopping centre integrates with surrounding parkland which extends to the community’s new residences, creating a sense of connection that blurs the boundaries between residential, urban, community and retail space. 

The walk in the park becomes a walk through the centre, without juxtaposition. 

Of course, sustainability is more than being green. It’s environmental, social and economic. And the Living Building Challenge® is more than just about being sustainable. It encourages net positivity, fruitful legacy, and natural beauty. 

The Living Building Challenge® is the world’s most rigorous sustainability performance measure in the built environment. The gold standard. It’s administered by the International Living Future Institute, the US-headquartered not-for-profit that envisions an ecologically-minded, restorative world for everyone, and which unreservedly demands more from those who shape our built form. The Living Future Institute of Australia is the domestic affiliate, providing education and training, advocacy and connection.

Merely aiming for certification signals an intention to aspire to something daring, difficult and defining. For developers, it means opening yourself up to new levels of scrutiny. There’s an expectation to share what you learn, even the uncomfortable lessons.

At Burwood Brickworks, the first retail project globally to aspire to the LBC®, these learnings would be wide-ranging and significant. 

Retail is traditionally a sector mired in consumption, synonymous with waste. Buzzing signs operating around the clock, artificially air-conditioned interiors cooling a neon-lit atmosphere that seeks to overtly remind people that they are consumers, removed from the natural world, in a place where happiness is achieved through the parting of person from dollar.

These buildings are the unnatural enemy of the Living Building Challenge®.