UNISON NETWORKS SUBSTATION
PROJECT CERTIFICATION Living Building Challenge vs. 4.0 Petal Certification Infrastructure & Landscape Typology 2023 (first in the world)
PROJECT STAGE Completed March 2022
PROJECT ARCHITECT Charissa Snijders
CSA PROJECT TEAM Charissa Snijders + Sanghun Lee
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY ADVISOR Tricia Love Consultants
PROJECT ENGINEER Unison Networks, Paul Humphreys
CONTRACTOR Gemco Construction, Brian Smith
PROJECT MANAGER/STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS LHT Design - Guy De Salis
MEDIA
Sustainable Business Network: case study
Charissa Snijders Architect realises world first!
Unison Substation Open Day: Hawkes Bay Today
Blog post: Living up to the Sustainable Challenge
Windsor substation sustainability project: “A small building with a big heart”
Winner of the Low Carbon Future Award, New Zealand Energy Excellence Awards
- press release
- summary
Client Reference
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Union Networks Substation
Unison Networks approached me early in 2020 to design with them a modular sustainable substation. Sustainability in all areas of their service was part of their strategic plan and in particular future building projects seemed an ideal opportunity to drive change in their thinking and culture and within the greater industry. Part of this exploration was the possibility of building within the Living Building Challenge Framework (LBC). The perfect clients.
Even though 2020 threw some wild curveballs they lived up to their bold commitment of wanting to take a leadership role in their sector. To help them on this journey, working closely with Tricia Love Consultants, we navigated with the team what a sustainability brief could be for this project. We explored the potential and went as far as we could to consider and extend our thinking of what this could mean. With the lockdowns we worked virtually as we explored the story of place, the story of Unison and their desire to be adaptable to a changing environment - socially, environmentally and as a service provider.
What unfolded was a small building having the potential beyond its size to help tell the story, vision and values of Unison Networks and the story of place. The project team fond mantra for this building became “a small building with a big heart”. It had a lot to live up to.
Even though small, this building has deepened relationships, will help educate and tell the story of sustainability and has and will have an on-going ripple effect throughout the organisation and ultimately, has the potential to lay the groundwork towards regeneration of the local waterways. Adopting a LBC framework for this project helped Unison go beyond their understanding of sustainability. In simplistic terms the building delivers a modular design - one that is able to be replicable, relocatable and scalable. The design considers ease of construction and minimum waste. The materials selected were considered for low maintenance, resilience and durability. Plus they are healthy, non-toxic and ‘red list free’. Living walls are incorporated into the design, along with Net positive water, and the building demonstrates Net positive energy. Thermal modelling and WUFI analysis helped shift from air-conditioning units to a HVAC system. And within all of that, beauty and function were purposefully entwined together.
The intent of the building is to gain Core Certification, which requires achieving 10 Core imperatives to be attained across all 7 Petals of the LBC. It is a requirement of CORE and Petal certification that two organisations within the project team have JUST labels. JUST provides a clear and focussed way for organisations to publicly disclose how they perform on 22 social justice and equity indicators. The indicators are grouped within the six categories of diversity, equity, safety, worker benefit and stewardship. Unison and Tricia Love Consultants are working towards JUST certification.
What this means, is long after this building is built, the ongoing ripple effects towards positive transformation continue - within the organisation, the building itself gifting back and the potential of regeneration of the environment.
We are proud to be a part of this transformation.
