Mains Water Neutral Gardening: An integrated approach to water conservation in sustainable urban gardens

The role of urban green space in contributing to the liveability of cities and towns is well recognised. Residential gardens make up a large portion of urban green space and how they are designed and managed will determine whether they contribute to environmental enhancement and human wellbeing, or become additional sources of resource depletion and pollution. This thesis demonstrates ways in which gardening can contribute to urban sustainability through thoughtful design and the clever management of water. Two new concepts are presented to achieve this objective: ‘Sustainable Urban Gardening’ and ‘Mains Water Neutral Gardening’. Sustainable Urban Gardening (SUG) is a multi-criteria sustainability framework that promotes a series of goals, including Energy Efficiency; Organic Waste Recycling and Soil Management; Biodiversity and Habitat Restoration; Organic Pest and Disease Management; Local Food Production; Water Conservation; and Health and Wellbeing of Householders. Mains Water Neutral Gardening (MWNG) is a site-responsive, integrated approach to water system design and management in residential gardens. It incorporates available lot-scale alternative water sources, such as greywater, rainwater and groundwater, with efficient irrigation practices and local environmental conditions to establish holistic water budgets that are capable of meeting garden water requirements as part of a water-sensitive landscape design. Three residential case study gardens based on the SUG and MWNG concepts were designed, built and documented as part of this research, whilst also featuring extensively in Australian television and print media. Monitoring demonstrated a reduction in household mains water consumption of between 42% and 92% when compared to local averages whilst addressing the intended SUG goals. The findings show the potential for greywater, rainwater and sustainably managed groundwater to contribute to mains water savings as part of a well-considered landscape design and household, however the high cost of supply in comparison to mains water (on a dollar per kilolitre basis) presents a barrier to broader adoption. Nonetheless, novel methods that optimise these water sources are demonstrated, enabling increased household resilience whilst reducing demand on constrained mains water supplies

Josh's Battery - a more even relationship with the grid

Josh's House is a “living laboratory” research and demonstration project in the Perth suburb of Hilton, Western Australia. The scope of Josh's House included the design and construction of two energy efficient family homes that achieved the highest level, 10-stars (estimated thermal load: 4 MJ/m2/year) [Australian Government Department of Environment, Star rating scale overview, 2015 (Online), http://www.nathers.gov.au/owners-and-builders/star-rating-scale-overview, accessed on: 2017/17/07], under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme. The project partners include the Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living and Curtin University. In mid-2015, a further research component was added to Josh's House involving the installation and ongoing monitoring of a battery storage system. This system is a domestic example of a distributed energy storage system (DESS) and is here referred to “Josh's Battery” or “the DESS”. The aim of the project is, in the first instance, to make domestic DESS data publicly available. Broader project objectives are to trial the technology, test assumptions on performance, document and communicate lessons and outcomes, and to inform further research and development. This paper provides an analysis of the monitoring data produced during the energy storage system's first year of operation. Particular areas of interest include: interaction with the electricity grid before and after installation of the storage system; correlation of system performance to specifications and modelled predictions; anomalies and unexpected results; and lessons learned from the installation and operation of the system. Implications and influences. The significance of this research is that it is built around the first monitored, grid connected domestic energy storage system in the Perth metropolitan area. It provides unprecedented data on how these systems can be expected to operate when embedded into a large-scale electricity network. The project also gives the opportunity to test some fundamental assumptions about these systems and feed into policy and business case development for the distributed energy storage sector, more broadly

Pre- and Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Resident Motivations for and Experiences of Establishing a Home in a Low-Carbon Development

There is some understanding of how an individual’s daily practices consume resources in the home, but the home as a space itself and peoples’ relationships to it remain an interesting research area. In this paper, residents of an Australian low-carbon development (LCD) are studied in order to discover the expectations and motivations driving them to move to their new home, the emotional landscape of the home, and their subsequent experiences living in an LCD. This exploration through mixed methods and a post-occupancy evaluation enables a longitudinal empirical study of the motivations, perceptions, expectations and experiences of an LCD residence. This study aims to further conceptualize the social understanding of a home and what people consider when moving into an LCD, along with the post-occupancy experiences that are important for establishing LCDs in the future. The results show that a home is associated with being a place of community, sustainability, safety and comfort, as well as a place that incorporates aesthetically pleasing features. The motivation for residents moving into an LCD is to have housing stability, live the life they want (including performing sustainable practices) and enjoy the attractive design of the LCD. The user experiences of living in an LCD include unexpected design influences on daily practices and an appreciation of the community atmosphere created. The strong sense of community and the self-reported thermally comfortable homes met residents’ expectations post-occupancy. This research is of interest to academics in the low-carbon and social science sectors, real-estate agents and property developers, as it provides insight into motivations and expectations of low-carbon dwelling residents

Optimising Residential Water Efficiency – The Josh’s House Project

Josh’s House is an innovative housing project in the suburb of Hilton, Western Australia consisting of two 10 Star NatHERS rated homes which are demonstrating a novel approach to the truly integrated design and implementation of residential urban water management supported by a uniquely high profile media campaign for the wider dissemination of knowledge to both the public and industry. This paper describes the design intent, implementation and commissioning of the waterbased components of the project and how its performance is being monitored with both building designs and performance data being made available to the wider community

East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism

With increasing pressure to ensure that sustainability features in homes are commercially viable, demonstration projects are vital to highlight the real-world challenges and opportunities for innovation. This paper documents the incorporation of sustainability objectives into the “East Village at Knutsford” residential “living laboratory” development, within the Knutsford urban regeneration precinct, approximately 1.5 km east of the Fremantle central business district in Western Australia. The sustainability objectives for the project include being a “Net Zero Energy Development” using 100% renewable energy and maximizing the self-supply of energy, reducing mains water consumption as much as is practical, and using the landscape design to complement these objectives without compromising a best-practice urban greening outcome. The paper documents the design initiatives and strategies that have been included to achieve these objectives in a commercially viable project and the results of modelling where it has been used to test the design against the objectives to ensure their validity. The key features that have been incorporated into the townhouses component of the development are outlined, illustrating integrated design and systems thinking that builds on previous demonstration projects, incorporating solar energy storage and electric vehicle charging plus significant mains water savings by adopting water-sensitive features in the homes and the within the private and public gardens. The expected grid energy and mains water consumption levels in the homes through modelling compared to the metropolitan average is 80% lower. The project is presented as an important step in the application of available technologies and design features to meet stated sustainability objectives, highlighting the benefits of an embedded living laboratory research approach

The Discrepancy between As-Built and As-Designed in Energy Efficient Buildings: A Rapid Review

Energy efficient buildings are viewed as one of the solutions to reduce carbon emissions from the built environment. However, studies worldwide indicate that there is a significant gap between building energy targets (as-designed) and the actual measured building energy consumption (as-built). Several underlying causes for the energy performance gap have been identified at all stages of the building life cycle. Focus is generally on the post-occupancy stage of the building life cycle. However, issues relating to the construction and commissioning stages of the building are a major concern, though not usually researched. There is uncertainty on how to address the as-designed versus as-built gap. The objective of this review article is to identify causes for the energy performance gap in buildings in relation to the post-design and pre-occupancy stages and review proposed solutions. The methodology applied in this research is the rapid review, which is a variant of the systematic literature review method. Findings suggest that causes for discrepancies between as-designed and as-built energy performance during the construction and commissioning stages relate to a lack of knowledge and skills, lack of communication between stakeholders and a lack of accountability for building performance post-occupancy. Recommendations to close this gap during this period include better training, improved communication standards, collaboration, energy evaluations based on post-occupancy performance, transparency of building performance, improved testing and verification and reviewed building standards

Ecological urban planning and design: A systematic literature review

Urbanization is a defining feature of the modern age, yet the current model of urban development profoundly alters the natural environment, often reducing biodiversity and ultimately threatening human wellbeing. An ecologically based urban planning and design paradigm should consider a more harmonious relationship. Through a systematic literature review of 57 papers, this research identified relevant concepts and theories that could underpin this new paradigm. It revealed a noticeable increase in academic interest in this subject since 2013 and the development of concepts and theories that reflect a more holistic socio-ecological systems approach to urban planning and design based on a transdisciplinary integration and synthesis of research. Seven main themes underpin the academic literature: ecosystem services, socio-ecological systems, resilience, biodiversity, landscape, green infrastructure, as well as integrated and holistic approaches. Six of these can be organised into either a sustainability stream or a spatial stream, representing the foundations of a potential new ecological urban planning and design paradigm that applies sustainability-related concepts in a spatial setting. The final theme, integrated and holistic, includes concepts that reflect the fundamental characteristics of this new paradigm, which can be termed 'urban consonance'

Information-based methods for predicting gene function from systematic gene knock-downs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The rapid annotation of genes on a genome-wide scale is now possible for several organisms using high-throughput RNA interference assays to knock down the expression of a specific gene. To date, dozens of RNA interference phenotypes have been recorded for the nematode <it>Caenorhabditis elegans</it>. Although previous studies have demonstrated the merit of using knock-down phenotypes to predict gene function, it is unclear how the data can be used most effectively. An open question is how to optimally make use of phenotypic observations, possibly in combination with other functional genomics datasets, to identify genes that share a common role.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We compared several methods for detecting gene-gene functional similarity from phenotypic knock-down profiles. We found that information-based measures, which explicitly incorporate a phenotype's genomic frequency when calculating gene-gene similarity, outperform non-information-based methods. We report the presence of newly predicted modules identified from an integrated functional network containing phenotypic congruency links derived from an information-based measure. One such module is a set of genes predicted to play a role in regulating body morphology based on their multiply-supported interactions with members of the TGF-<it>β </it>signaling pathway.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Information-based metrics significantly improve the comparison of phenotypic knock-down profiles, based upon their ability to enhance gene function prediction and identify novel functional modules.</p