Council House 2

Council House 2 (CH2) is a City of Melbourne (formerly Melbourne City Council) office building, designed by Mick Pearce and DesignInc, that was opened on 30 August 2006. The excellent environmentally sustainable features include

• a water mining plant delivering 100 000 litres of recycled water per day;
• a low energy cooling system;
• automatic windows that open at night to cool the building;
• vaulted concrete ceilings to improve air circulation, cooling and natural light;
• a facade of louvres to track the sun to shade the Western side; and
• roof mounted wind turbines to draw hot air out of the building.

I like how functionality is built into the design.

How it works

west facade with the wooden louvres (from Swanston Street)


west facade with wooden louvres open


interior office fitout


roof terrace, with yellow wind turbines


See also
- review in Architecture Australia (Jan/Feb 2007) - lots more photos there
- guided tour with ABC TV Catalyst (19 April 2007)
- 'Green offices that slash absentism' Sydney Morning Herald (16 January 2008)

I only learnt about CH2 from the SMH article last month. I will have to visit the building during one of my forthcoming (football) trips to Melbourne.

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I was intending to meet up with Emily this evening at the Australia Day Live 08 free concert, but decided that being amongst 35 000 other people might be a bit much. I only wanted to catch The Basics and Gotye numbers. In any case, I watched it on tv and their sets were very short - two songs from The Basics and Hearts a Mess from Gotye.