Site visit: PHIVE Building 6-star GS, electric, mixed-mode

PHIVE is Parramatta's $136 million civic, cultural and community hub. It opened in September 2022 on one of the city's most historically significant sites. The new building connects directly to the heritage-listed 1883 Parramatta Town Hall and cantilevers above its roof.

It was also designed and delivered without natural gas and a mixed-mode natural ventilation system.

This tour is led by the people who built it, Built, and the people who operate it, City of Parramatta. You will hear how the builder approached the tender using sustainability strategies to win the project, how they delivered on these strategies, and how this then translates into building operation and user experience.

You will see:

how a new civic building was joined to a heritage-listed Town Hall

how the building runs without gas: all-electric VRF, no cooling towers, no gas-fired hot water to amenities

how the roof form drives natural ventilation, with automated louvres that switch mode on live temperature, CO2 and humidity readings

how three weather stations linked to the Bureau of Meteorology close the louvres ahead of a storm

how the design targets 6 Star Green Star, at least 35 per cent energy saving and more than 60 per cent water saving

what the team would do differently, and how the building has performed since opening.

Suited to building services, mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, and sustainability engineers, and anyone interested in engineering heritage.

Places are limited to 15. No PPE required.

Learning outcomes

In this site walk, you will learn:

how a new civic building was designed and delivered without natural gas, and what that meant for the mechanical, hydraulic and electrical services

how a new building was joined to the heritage-listed 1883 Parramatta Town Hall on an archaeologically significant site, and the constraints that were placed on design and construction

how mixed-mode ventilation, all-electric VRF and sensor-driven controls work together, and how deleting cooling towers and amenity hot water changed water use and maintenance liability

what the builder and the owner would do differently, and which questions to raise early on your own electrification or heritage-adjacent project.