- Only the Atlassian hybrid timber tower will have a similar carbon negative status
- Timber required can be regrown in an hour in one sustainable forest region
- Design and documentation will be shared with other developers post-construction
Grange Development has recently submitted plans to the City of South Perth for what will be – if approved – the world’s tallest timber building, C6.
On top of this, the proposed $350 million hybrid timber tower will become the state’s first carbon negative building. Only the Atlassian hybrid timber Tower in Sydney is on track for a similar carbon negative status.
Located at 6 Charles Street, South Perth – and aptly named after the periodic table’s symbol for Carbon – Fraser & Partners have designed the new building which will be built using 7,400 cubic metres of timber leveraging Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), Glue Laminated Timber (Glulam) and Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL).
Structural engineers working on the project have determined it will take just 59 minutes to regrow all the timber used for the building in one sustainable forest region alone.
All the timber required to build the apartment floors, beams and columns can be regrown from 580 seeds – which can be held in two cupped hands.
The submitted proposal includes 245 one, two, three and four-bedroom apartments over 48 levels, and a 500sqm rooftop with an edible garden. Additionally, there will be 1,650sqm of communal wellness amenity.
In total, the building will offer 18 sqm of communal space per apartment, triple the current planning requirements of 6 sqm per apartment.
Other design elements include an embedded power network, meaning the building will absorb its energy from natural sources such as wind and sun along with on-site waste management, food production and biophilic vertical landscapes.
The building’s core structure will sequester over 10,497,600 kgCO2eq compared to a concrete structure of a similar scale. The energy saved equates to 4,885 economy class seats on a Perth to London flight.
“ Timber as a building material has been around for centuries, but only recently has mass timber construction and fabrication methods made it a viable option en masse,” said James Dibble, Grange Development founder and director.
“C6 represents the future of what is possible, except we will deliver it now. On-site energy production, a complete electric vehicle solution that can totally remove the need for fossil fuel-powered cars, a huge focus on biophilic design to deliver tangible health benefits, and a building that actively sequesters carbon.”
“If we get this right, we should never have to rely on building another solely concrete or steel tower in our lifetime.”
Plans to be shared post-construction
In a challenge to fellow developers, Grange Development said that post-construction it is committed to open source sharing the research, design and construction documentation of the program, to encourage other developers to take up, evolve and progress the building methodology used.
“We as a company are not driven solely by profit,” added Mr Dibble.
“We are driven by the need to urgently reduce our carbon footprint whilst delivering happier, heathier homes. We want to encourage other developers to see what we have delivered with C6 and start to incorporate the methodology across other projects.
James Dibble, Grange Development founder
“Steel and concrete are some of the most energy-dense materials in the world to produce and at the moment the industry relies on it.
“If we can accelerate a paradigm shift into the use of more renewable building materials such as mass timber in a hybrid nature and see even 10, 15 or 20 percent of future projects use mass timber in their construction in the next few years, we will have succeeded.”
Fraser & Partners Principal Reade Dixon added the project began by acknowledging uncomfortable truths, such as that Australia is among the highest emitters of carbon per capita.
Rather than shy away from the facts, for us, the scale of the problem represented the opportunity for an ambitious solution,” said Mr Dixon.
“The scale and carbon negative nature of our project represents a lot of ‘firsts’ for our industry — but with renewable technology on the doorstep, we hope that it will soon simply be the first of many.”
Reade Dixon, Fraser & Partners Principal
Pending approval, the building is earmarked to launch in the market next year.
