• Small Commercial
• Public Building & Urban Design
• Innovation of the Year

Below are extracts from the finalist information as featured in Building Product News October 2011.

Innovation of the year

The Bush Fire Construction System was created to offer a high-resistance to cyclones and floods through sustainable initiatives:

• it ensures buildings are resistant to bush fires, cyclones and floods;
• the built form is highly thermally insulated saving energy consumption;
• it uses non-toxic materials;
• achieves the highest BCA rating of bush fire resistance in Australia;
• the system forms a structural fire insulating shell over the building which is integral to the walls;
• the windows are protected by patented fire resisting awnings, reducing energy consumption;
• white ant and rot resistant (no timber is used).

Small commercial

Following the Victorian bushfires and consequent tougher regulations in bushfire-prone regions, Cox Architects designed a rural fire station, developing it as a full size prototype building to test and further develop a unique construction system the client had conceptualised.

• designed to be sustainable against the full effect of bush fires and other extreme weather events;
• the building is self-sufficient and requires no grid supplied services such as electricity and water;
• self generating energy;
• the building construction system and design, including the fire shutters, passed the rigid tests of compliance for registration of local and international patents;
• system and building has achieved the highest current bush fire resistance rating in Australia;
• uses minimal energy.

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