NAB banks on a green building

National Australia Bank (NAB) has unveiled its new home in Melbourne’s Docklands at 700 Bourke St.

Project director Roger Macmorran explained that the building came about through collaboration between NAB’s key principle stakeholders - Cbus Property and Brookfield Multiplex - working together with design consultants Norman Disney & Young (NDY) and Woods Bagot. Designed to provide its occupants with a sustainable, flexible working environment, the building has successfully achieved 6-Star Green Star and 5-Star NABERS ratings.

“Sustainability is at the heart of this project,” said Jon Plevey, Development Manager, Cbus Property.

NAB Head of Environment and Sustainability Nicola Murphy said one of the most important ways this was achieved was by building less: “use less construction materials, less furniture, less fittings and, in the operation of our building, use less energy and water”. The company sought a minimalist fit-out, she said, with exposed ceiling cavities and exposed concrete where there isn’t a need for carpet or timber.

“When we look at 700 Bourke St, we’re anticipating that it will use around 40% less energy than the six buildings that we’re moving out of and, from a water perspective, we’ve anticipating around 50% less water use than a typical office building,” Murphy said.

NDY Sustainability Group Manager Sarah Reid said that, as well as having water-efficient fixtures and fittings, rainwater is collected from the roof, stored in a 100 kL tank in the basement and used for toilet flushing and landscape irrigation. In addition, she said, all the timber is either re-used, recycled or certified; and the PVC is either accredited best-practice PVC or has been replaced by an alternative material.

NDY also created the building’s 145 m facade, which Reid said was “designed to reduce the heat loads that the air conditioning needs to deal with”.

“The vision glazing area has been reduced - it’s very highly thermally efficient glazing - and there’s a lot of thermal insulation in the walls and in the roof,” she said. “The fissures in the facade introduce high levels of daylight into the interior, as does the atrium.”

The building is a flexible space for employees, with Macmorran saying people have “an enormous amount of variety of choice in terms of work settings and collaboration spaces; how they choose to work really is up to them”. People are encouraged to move around via the building’s several staircases - an act which improves their health and wellbeing, according to Woods Bagot Principal Simon Pole - and bicycle facilities are provided as well.

To accommodate all this staff migration, NDY implemented a chilled beam system - a solution which had not yet been tried in Victoria, according to Duncan Scott, Director, Project Planning and Management. It was further noted that the chilled beam system required very strong control of the building facade and the perimeter, to ensure that the environmental effects outside the building don’t effect the environment within the building. Richard Hume, Joint Managing Director, Montlaur Project Services, said this was a risk, but the system is now working particularly well.

Four years after its conception, the project is now complete. NAB believes that the building will not only be able to connect with its employees and customers, but also the community