Media House a winner from all angles

The five-star Green Star development, located at the edge of Melbourne's Docklands, houses The Age newspaper, The Australian Financial Review and 3AW and was completed in 2009. It is owned by Commonwealth Property Office Fund and was nominated by Grocon.

Media House, which beat 101 contenders from around the country to claim the main award, also won the Colliers International Award for Best Office Development and the Project Control Group Award for Best Workplace Project.

Other Victorian winners include Stable Group's Triptych, the Village Building Award for Best Residential Development Lend Lease's Martha's Point, the Gadens Lawyers Award for Retirement Living Development Pixel by Grocon, the Nepean Award for Innovation and Davis Langdon's Michael Skelton took out the Judd Farris Award for Future Leader.

Property Council of Australia chief operating officer Ken Morrison said Media House was an outstanding showcase of what Australia's property industry could produce, achieving benchmarks in innovation and sustainability.

Media House's project team included Bates Smart, Fulcrum Town Planners, Norman Disney & Young, RLB, and emerystudio.

The judges said Triptych, a 29-storey, $230 million building in Kavanagh Street, Southbank, raised the bar for innovation, art integration and sustainability.

It features a vertical wall garden provided by local company Fytogreen that contains plants that can thrive in the outdoor environment. The Green Wall has a fully integrated hydroponic watering system that supports the attached vegetated panels.

Triptych, developed by RI Investment Trust, is so named because it turns three distinct facades to the street. The 157-apartment building was designed by architects Nettleton Tribe with input from Carr Design, James Durie's Patio landscapers and Australian artist Robert Owen. Environmental engineers Cundall oversaw the "green" theme.

Grocon's Pixel on the old CUB site in Carlton has a world-class sustainability rating. The building's sustainability measures include extensive use of rainwater, a green roof with wetland edges, double-glazed windows with external shade panels that block heat and glare, an under-floor air distribution system, wind turbines, and solar panels that track the sun.

A key ingredient is also "green" concrete a product that the Grocon team, working with Boral Concrete, created that uses 60 per cent less cement and 100 per cent recycled and reclaimed aggregate.

Mr Skelton is global business intelligence manager for Davis Langdon and leads teams in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.