Monash University’s new highly sustainable student accommodation complex at its Peninsula campus has been completed.
Located in Frankston, Victoria, the Peninsula campus is considered to be the third largest of Monash University’s urban campuses and caters to approximately 3,600 students.
The campus forms a part of a vibrant regional integrated health and education precinct and is fast becoming a leading centre of allied health and primary care education and research.
Monash’s brand new student accommodation precinct comprises 150 single occupancy units over six levels and provides students with several high-quality, modern and eco-friendly residential spaces.
Designed by high-profile architects, Jackson Clements Burrows, the 6,000-square metre accommodation building features communal kitchens, games rooms and principle apartments for students to relish.
The project was built by Multiplex who stated sustainability was at the forefront of the project and the new residential building is targeting Passive House certification.
Passive house design focuses on occupant comfort, health and performance-based buildings which will reduce operating energy costs and make them significantly more economical to run.
The eco-friendly building features a rainwater harvesting tank, rooftop solar panels and water-sensitive urban design – notably the creation of a landscaped dry-creek bed that will provide additional opportunities for recreation.
The project was also Multiplex’s first venture into cross-laminated timber construction (CLT), which has the capacity to halve the embodied carbon in the building relative to a concrete structure.
According to Multiplex, designing and procuring CLT from Italy for delivery to the Peninsula campus site was particularly challenging and occurred on a highly tight schedule.
This was because the CLT structure had to commence immediately after concrete works were finished and needed to be finalised over a 10-week period to ensure the fit-out of the apartments was on schedule.
Work on the accommodation commenced in March 2018 and approximately 760 people worked on site throughout the project’s construction.