HIA Greensmart Awards 2011

We are delighted that SIPs Industries Australia has been chosen as the winners of the HIA WA Greensmart Partnership Award 2011 for the project featured in this post.

The winning entry was the Landcorp Sales Office, designed by Coda Architects in Perth, WA.  SIPs Industries constructed the building in their factory, then transported in it modules to the site.  The design called for a reduced carbon footprint, along with high levels of efficiency to keep running costs down to the minimum.

The Greensmart judges were impressed that a working prototype has been used to enhance and re-engineer the improved end product. They thought that the project ticked all the boxes for a collaborative approach to innovative design outcomes.


The brief for this project was very clear and specific.  The Landcorp, Perry Lakes Sales Office, designed by Coda Architects was to meet the follow objectives;

·         Touch the ground lightly 

·         Reduce the carbon foot print

·         Incorporate traditional practise and materials.

·         Make it look special with the same budget set for a standard transportable building  of the same size

·         Keep the running costs down to a minimum by making it as energy efficient as possible

·         Delivery within 4 weeks from final design outline.

In order to achieve all the directives it was necessary to work closely with the other key material suppliers; our  key objective was to work closely with the steel manufacturer in order to reduce the amount of steel in the building. 

A traditional build would have large I beam sections with a significant amount of steel required to build the floor system, walls and roof.  Traditional floor systems are a one piece structure that require over width transport and large cranes and low loaders to move. The large sections of steel also increase the carbon footprint.

A work shop was conducted with Sips Industries, Australia Steel and the builder and Engineer.  We re-engineered a lighter, more efficient floor system using rolled Galvanised Tubing in lieu of larger steel sections.

We took the view that the new floor system should be functional in all conditions in Western Australia including the North West.  We also wanted to eliminate steel to the upper section of the building where possible.

The key outcomes of the finished project were:

We are very proud of our achievements in winning a Greensmart Award for the 2^nd year running. We are looking forward to submitting some more exciting projects we are currently working on for the 2012 Greensmart Awards.

·         The amount of steel in the floor was reduced by 1683.05 kg.

·         The amount of steel in the walls was reduced to Zero from 370.80kg.

·         The amount of steel in the Roof section was reduced to Zero from 422.60kg.

·         The Roof cover was to be Trim Deck as per the Specification.

·         The steel components were made from light weight tubing with a wall thickness of 1.6mm and the tube 100 x 50 mm box section.

·         The Engineer was able to use the SIPs component as the major strength component for the structure.

• The office was built off-site, then broken up into 5 individual sections not exceeding 2.4m wide; these could fit onto the back of a trailer or truck. The Modular building could be driven up the Freeway and down any Perth street to its first site.
• Each module could be reassembled with 10 minutes per section once it arrived on site.
• In the future, the building can be broken back down into 5 modules within a day and re-located.
• The Modular floor system and SIPs Walls and Roof system could be used in Cyclone rated regions to the highest requirements such as Exmouth or Karratha.