Curtin University promotes sustainability institutes

Curtin University recently held a sustainability showcase that promoted the work being conducted at its various research centres. Four clips from four centres and institutes were created and uploaded to YouTube.

The director of the Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) institute, Professor Peter Newman AO, revealed that the institute has nearly 70 PhD students. He continued to say that the institute focuses on solving problems, rather than looking at theories, with current projects including climate change adaptation in the south-west; green innovation in China; and building railways.

“The legacy of CUSP, I believe, will be a whole series of people who are solving problems that before were put aside, because they’ve got skills that cut across the disciplines, they’ve got the passion to do it and, most of all, they’ve got the hope that what they do will really matter,” he said.

The CEO of the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc), Dr Keith Hampson, explained that the centre is “a unique blend of industry, government and research partners who come together delivering applied research for Australian industry”. The centre’s research is structured across three streams of sustainability, he said: environmental, social and economic.

Dr Hampson noted that the strategic direction of the centre is determined by its board, which provides a place for researchers as well as government and the private sector. One of the centre’s current projects is the $1.2 billion Perth Children’s Hospital, where the centre is looking at building information modelling (BIM) for optimising construction and lowering long-term asset costs.

The executive director of Australian Sustainable Development Institute (ASDI), Mike Burbridge, said the role of the institute is “to bring people together from across the university, from communities, from industry, to tackle some of the serious issues that face society and to come up with real solutions”. The institute is particularly interested in promoting discussion based around the facts of an issue, rather than around fear.

The ASDI is also exploring design based on nature, with Burbridge noting, “Nature’s very good at producing things that use a minimal amount of water [and] energy, produce no waste, create diversity.” This has impacted the institute’s work around biomimicry and regenerative cities.

The Australasian Joint Research Centre for Building Information Modelling’s (BIM) managing committee is led by Professor Xiangyu Wang. One of the concerns of the centre, said Professor Wang, “is to see how information can be effectively managed throughout the entire life cycle of the project - all the way from design engineering, to construction, and eventually to operation and maintenance”.

BIM has been conducting Project Echo, described by Professor Wang as “a collaborative project between Curtin, Woodside, government and over 20 different industry partners … with the ultimate goal to enhance technology-enabled productivity for the entire industry”. The project aims to get the right information to the right people at the right time during the construction of LNG mega projects, thus enabling productivity gains, through advances in virtual and augmented reality.