The Kingston Building Australia's (KBA) headquarters in Newcastle has gone from a dusty warehouse to a state-of-the-art workspace which comprises an innovative mix of salvaged materials and high performance insulation and heating.
KBA presented Suters with the brief to "turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse” using the bones of a 1970’s industrial shed, while sticking to the company's request for a sustainable build, including the use of materials rescued from KBA's various projects.
Suters associate and project leader for the project Joel Chamberlain said that a variety of products were used on the project including R3.0 CSR Gold Batts for the walls and ceiling insulation.
"The project is an existing warehouse so its function and thermal performance was quite different in its original use to what we changed it into, which was predominately a series of offices, so we had to upgrade the entire building fabric and use the bulk insulation in the walls. Most of the new cladding is a ventilated façade system," said Chamberlain.
The building also has breathable membrane to wall cavities and a Daikin VRV heating and cooling system was installed.
"The building utilises a highly efficient VRV air conditioning system which has been zoned throughout. We've also got operable windows to the individual offices and open plan offices upstairs so for those interim months in a shoulder season there are days where they actually just use natural ventilation," Chamberlain added.
New products including the ventilated facade systems - a Weathertex Rubix Panel and CSR Cemintel Designer Series - were neatly incorporated with the recycled and salvaged materials from various projects and demolition sites for improved insulation performance.
"Probably one of the most striking elements is the salvage materials and reused materials in the shed itself down to timber floor panelling and salvaged and recycled steel members from the former internal fit out," said Chamberlain.
The glass included is high performance Comfort Plus glazing from Viridian which was used in the large two storey curtain wall at the entry.
KBA and Suters have kept in touch since the building's completion in March 2012 and Chamberlain reports that the company workers are enjoying their new offices and are monitoring the building's performance.
"They're very happy with it. Throughout the construction process as well we stayed in pretty close contact so in addition to the recycled, salvaged materials that they had from other sites and demolition projects, they also used quite a few new products in there."
Images courtesy of Suters Architects. Photography: Andy Warren
