While many Australian households have solar power, our very large houses and wasteful use of building space are factors in our very high emissions.
Jen Watson/Shutterstock
Making better use of existing building space is a neglected but essential way to cut our carbon emissions. The key is human behaviour. Good low-carbon citizens will help create good low-carbon cities.
As climate change intensifies, much of the nation’s building stock will need upgrading to strengthen it against flooding, snowstorms and other weather hazards.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh participates in a climate strike event as he makes a campaign stop in Victoria on Friday, Sept. 27, 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
A call to make our cities more resilient to climate change could drive one of the largest new infrastructure builds in history.
With the tensile strength of steel but six times lighter, bamboo can be used for ambitious buildings once it has been treated to ensure its durability.
Courtesy of Green School Bali
Bamboo has been used since ancient times for building, but only in recent decades has pioneering work in Bali inspired its wider use for substantial and enduring structures.
Air conditioning requires energy, and contributes to global warming – here are five ways of cooling which won’t cost the planet.
Residents carry their belongings out of Mascot Towers, Sydney, on June 23, after being evacuated because of cracks in the building.
Bianca De Marchi/AAP
The delay in adopting a national approach to building industry reform, based on a report received more than a year ago, typifies official neglect of the impacts of uncertainty on the affected people.
Imagining the interior of a living building.
Assia Stefanova/Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment.
From building blocks made of fungus to self-healing concrete, architecture is using biotechnology to make buildings come alive.
Government ministers responded to the construction industry crisis by announcing a national approach to implementing recommendations of a report they commissioned in 2017 and received 17 months ago.
Bianca De Marchi/AAP
The construction industry crisis didn’t happen overnight. Authorities have been on notice for years to fix the problems that now have the industry itself calling for better regulation.
Towering canyons of concrete and glass are an increasingly dominant feature of fast-growing cities like Melbourne.
ymgerman/Shutterstock
Planning controls in Melbourne were eased 20 years ago, with mixed results, and new limits are now in place. Will other cities that have eased height limits, like Adelaide, avoid the same mistakes?
Fires and building failures highlighted serious gaps in Australian building regulations. But recent revisions and recommendations still fall short of preparing our buildings for climate change.
Mandatory competitive design processes have transformed the Sydney CBD skyline.
Robert Freestone
For two decades, a competitive design process pioneered by Sydney City Council has been transforming the city skyline and, new research shows, raising standards as it goes.
The burden of regulatory failure hasn’t just hit residents of evacuated apartments like the Neo200 building in Melbourne – it affects everyone living in a building with serious defects.
Ellen Smith/AAP
Years of regulatory failure are having direct impacts on the hip pockets of the many Australians who bought defective houses or apartments. It’s turning into a multibillion-dollar disaster.
Can Australians be confident that the new National Construction Code will ensure new buildings avoid structural defects like those that led to the evacuation of the Opal Tower (left) in Sydney?
Dylan Coker/AAP
Under the new code, buildings are hardly likely to differ measurably from their fault-ridden older siblings and can still fall short of a six-star rating. It’s possible they may have no stars!
Artificial light - including at the Tribute in Light in New York City - disorients nocturnal migratory birds.
Kelvin/Flickr
The illegal demolition of a historic pub in Melbourne is the subject of a legal bid to order its rebuilding. Although the heritage value of such a move is debatable, there are other justifications.
Residents evacuated from the Neo200 building in Melbourne were unaware of the fire risk posed by its cladding.
Ellen Smith/AAP
As more and more Australians live and work in high-rise buildings, their responsibilities and roles in ensuring all occupants’ safety must not be neglected.
Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Director of the Healthy Plumbing Consortium and Center for Plumbing Safety, Purdue University