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The Australian international Air conditioning, Refrigeration and Building Services (ARBS) trade exhibition announced its industry award winners this week at the Crown Palladium in Melbourne.
Women were celebrated, and industry winners included lower emissions refrigeration products, data analytics tools that monitor energy efficiency, and Australia’s tallest engineered timber office building.
Held every two years in association with the ARBS Exhibition, the ARBS Industry Awards showcase individuals, products, projects, service and education in the Australian heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) and building services industry.
The best of the best are assessed based on criteria such as leadership, sustainability, performance, and innovation.
Australia’s tallest engineered timber office building scooped the award for project excellence, demonstrating innovation in its application of existing tech to push the boundaries and reach its groundbreaking goal.
With specialist building services provided by AG Coombs, 25 King’s superstructure utilised a combination of engineered cross-laminated timber and glue-laminated timber, a commercially viable and more sustainable alternative to steel and concrete construction for mid-scale office buildings. The building achieved platinum WELL Certification, 6 Star Green Star design, as Built v1.1, and NABERS energy 5 Star ratings.
Designed by architects Bates Smart for clients Lendlease and Aerecon, the building also demonstrated a wellness objective, in creating a healthy office environment with an emphasis on indoor environmental quality.
Managing director for urban regeneration at Lendlease, John Burton, explained: “The building demonstrates greener and healthier ways of working. This creates a workplace that lives and breathes a culture of collaboration providing workers with a sense of belonging.”
It’s not the first award for the building which also won several Australian Institute of Architects architecture awards.
Grace Foo, co-founder of boutique energy and carbon management consultancy DeltaQ, was given the young achiever award for her enterprise, commitment and leadership in the industry.
Ms Foo has influenced national policy development on diversity and inclusion, contributed to revisions of Section J of the National Construction Code and supported the expansion of the NABERS program.
The Building Ventilation Summit was applauded for its role in bringing together experts to share how the building industry can do its part in reducing airborne transmission of covid.
The summit explored the health, economic and political contexts, and medium- and long-term reform implications that are needed to support Australians to be confident and safe in shared indoor environments.
At the conference, Dr Norman Swan reminded the audience how important the HVC&R industry is in responding to and preventing the spread of viruses: “The message for people working in the ventilation industry, is that the bug, the germ, the virus is the least significant portion of a pandemic.
“It is how we manage the people of our world, how we work through government response, public health and social measures, individual response, and most importantly, technical response… Remember – it’s us, humans, who cause pandemics.”
Temperzone took home an award for product excellence for innovation and sustainability. The product, Econex air cooled R32 Inverter package unit range, is a low carbon rooftop air conditioning system that represents a reduction in costs of maintenance, combined with reduced emissions. Compared to the Eco R420 range, this product has a 71–79 per cent reduction in refrigerant-related global warming potential for every kilowatt of cooling or heating capacity.
CopperTree Analytics was awarded the software and digital excellence award for its data analytics and ongoing commissioning tool that continuously monitors HVAC equipment performance and energy consumption. Working in conjunction with building automation and metering systems, the tool measures against optimal performance guidelines and its own baseline, and alters the user as to how well it is performing – allowing the user to take action immediately.
Gwen Gray passed away in April 2021 at the age of 94, after a long and trailblazing career as a woman in the world of HVAC&R. She was awarded a place in the Hall of Fame for her outstanding service, contribution and commitment to the sector.
One of the few women in her era working in engineering, she was the Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air conditioning and Heating (AIRAH) first female member in 1967, and went on to become the president of AIRAH’s Victorian division. Her career included projects such as the Royal Melbourne Hospital boiler extensions in the early 1960s, and the construction of the Arts Centre Melbourne in the 1970s.
Also Hall of Fame winners were Chris Wright, Ian Small, Ken Ball, Noel Munkman, and Simon Hill.
Chris Wright has worked in the HVAC&R industry for more than 48 years, was director of TCM in Tasmania, and led projects from the University of Tasmania’s Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies to CSIRO’s Marine and Atmospheric Research Laboratories. Mr Wright sat on AMCA’s national board for eight years, was Tasmanian and National President, chaired the Alliance of USA, Canada, UK and Australia, was Australian President of NEBB, and is currently President of the new Testing and Commissioning Association.
Ian Small has been involved in the building services industry since 1968, has held positions from apprentice draftsman to engineer, project manager to Managing Director of the National Air Conditioning Group. He has worked with AMCA, the Specialist Subcontractors Association, Engineers Australia and the Society of Building Services Engineering, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), the CIBSE ANZ Regional Committee, and the CIBSE Benevolence Fund.
Ken Ball has worked for Kelvinator, Carrier, Haden Engineering, Mitsubishi and Temperzone. He has worked at HVAC industry association AREMA for more than 20 years mentoring, providing advice, and contributing to standards and technical committees.
Noel Munkman has held senior roles with TAFE NSW, WorldSkills, Energy Skills Australia, Electrotechnology Industry Reference Committee and the Australian Refrigeration Council. He is currently WorldSkills International’s RAC skills competition manager, and is technical and training manager at the Australian Refrigeration Council, and participates in national technical committees and working groups to develop solutions for safety, technology, training and refrigerant issues.
Simon Hill has four decades worth of contributions to mechanical services design, installation, commissioning, and maintenance. He has developed and presented training seminars on ventilation, fire and smoke control, and fire damper installation, has acted as an expert witness on HVAC disputes and HVAC standards and regulations. He has also contributed to Standards Australia on multiple sub-committees.
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