Sustainability. At our core. From the beginning.
Since 2001 our approach to projects has always included the consideration of the planet.
Our passion for making radical change where we can still drives us today. At times, we’ve been frustrated things were moving too slowly, but we remain optimistic, we remain committed.
We have amazing like-minded clients and consultants, governments at all levels that want to support sustainable projects and a team that have the know-how to make real, lasting impact.
The fly-roofed Desert House. Photo by Kilian O’Sullivan.
Leading the way
Our projects are now studied as models of sustainable buildings throughout the world.
We put a little known night-sky cooling system onto a library in 2009. In 2014 we built a hyper-insulated, fly-roofed house in the Northern Territory desert and a civilized camping house on the NSW south coast where the living spaces were verandahs and extra guests were accommodated in hammocks.
Malqafs of the Australian Opal Centre, currently under construction. 3D visualisation by Darc Studios.
How much less can we do?
Nowadays we find ourselves working on masterplans that apply principles of sustainability to street layouts, density and open space and include landscape regeneration, museums cooled by malqafs and internal gardens and projects where the buildings and their functions are about sustainability.
We try to make the buildings smaller, and retain and reuse existing buildings, think about the longevity of all structures, choose the materials carefully and think about what more (or what less) we can do.
Macaria Art Gallery. Photo by Katherine Lu.
Community capital and heritage
We’ve always understood sustainability in a broad way; can the building or program be financially sustainable, can its use be sustained for more than 200 years and how can we sustain a good standard of life on this planet for as many people as possible?
The importance that we’ve always placed on sustainability has naturally led us to work with heritage buildings and buildings for community. These types of projects have an affinity with the core ideas of sustainability because they are about longevity.
“DunnHillam deliver a wide range of sustainability outcomes through their work. Their commitment to designing from the first principles of building science, human health, and material efficiency results in places that use less energy, feel good, and minimize their environmental footprint. Ashley and Lee's ability to collaborate with all technical design disciplines ensures that sustainability is integrated into the everyday elements of architecture and building systems, robustly and affordably.
This is all possible in part because DunnHillam set a standard for the entire project team of collaborative, cheerful, productive working, bringing out the best of everyone on their projects.
Ashley and Lee (and all of their team members) are the bomb.”
Paul Stoller, LEED Fellow
Director, Atelier Ten
Camden Amenities