Built on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people
At first glance, Burwood Brickworks has the hallmarks of a mid-sized, middle-ring suburban shopping centre. Supermarket, bottle shop, chemist, nail salon – check. There are even additional conveniences, including a GP, cinema, childcare centre and dog spa. For one of the most sustainable shopping centres in the Southern Hemisphere, it is surprisingly “normal.” Indeed, the great achievement of Burwood Brickworks is bringing sustainability to the conventional by reinventing our daily lives, proving that we can – and must – do better.
For Stephen Choi, an initiator and champion of the project and Living Building Challenge manager for developer Frasers Property Australia, creating a replicable prototype was a core driver of this project. “We have to stop doing ‘less bad’ and start doing genuinely good buildings,” he explained, while giving us a tour of the centre.1
To achieve that goal, architects Nick Bourns
