Description

In 2024, Australia's most progressive building designers, architects and energy efficiency assessors were asked to save our planet—through design. They used their knowledge, passion, and abilities to design homes we need for a low-carbon future. The idea was to not only design a home that produces more power than it uses over the year, but to consider and calculate embodied carbon in material selection, and to put on enough extra photovoltaic panels to pay back the home's entire carbon debt by 2050.

The competition was called the True Zero Carbon Challenge, and their mission was to create homes of the future, today, by designing True Zero homes compliant with 2050 objectives. Australia is home to some of the world’s best design visionaries, and competitions like the True Zero Carbon Challenge are the ideal opportunity to showcase their skills, here and all over the world.

What's On

At Open House Melbourne 2025, Design Matters National, Australia’s largest and fastest growing peak body for building designers and energy efficiency assessors, will introduce some of the shining lights who met the True Zero Carbon Challenge, and in the process developed the skills needed to thrive in the coming decades.

The brain behind the Challenge, Jeremy Spencer—building designer, energy efficiency assessor, builder, and member of Design Matters National—will, alongside architects, building designers and energy assessors, present winning entries and give the audience a chance to engage in a conversation around meeting the challenge of creating homes of the future.

Participants will include Jeremy Spencer, Positive Footprints Sustainable Homes; Uta Green, Green Design; Ben Walsham, Arkata; Ande Bunbury, Ande Bunbury Architects; Anna Womersley, Blue Banded Bee; and Greg Sparrius and Pip Sparrius, students of architecture and energy assessment.