It's been 10 years since a team of University of Wollongong students won a global competition for retrofitting a classic Australian fibro cottage to transform it into a sustainable 21st Century net-zero energy home.
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And, with climate disasters overseas in the headlines and an elevated risk of bushfires predicted this summer, Vice Chancellor Patricia Davidson says it is more important than ever that the lessons from the Illawarra Flame House start filtering through to wider building practices.
"We're all looking at this summer with fear and trepidation," she said.
"We have to do things better... We've got a huge responsibility to get our act together."
Students and academics gathered at the house, which now stands at the Innovation Campus on August 12 to mark a decade since the Solar Decathlon China competition in 2013.
Now rented out during the week to allow monitoring and research to continue, the house was designed to show how an average Australian home could be changed to become more liveable and energy efficient.
In attendance was NSW Planning Minister and Wollongong MP Paul Scully, who previously worked at UOW's Australian Institute for Innovative Materials and was involved in the Solar Decathlon project.
He said the project would stick in his mind as he tackles the state's need for "well located, well designed well built homes" in his new role.
"I don't know if any of my senior departmental staff have come down to see this house, but if they haven't, they probably will, because I keep talking about the fact that it can be done, it was done and it was done 10 years in advance of what most people thought it could be done," he said.
Mr Scully said he was aware that any push to make building more sustainable needed to be affordable amid a housing crisis.
"The price point of a lot of these things are coming down and will continue to come down as demand expands," he said.
"You're starting to see people wanting a lot of these elements into the homes that they're building or into the homes that they're buying, and it's the retrofit tasks that can be guided by the research of the Sustainable Building Research Centre."
With responsibility for the government-owned development company, Landcom, Mr Scully said he wanted to set a new standard for how homes could be build at a "good price point, in a sustainable manner, that saves energy and reduces carbon emissions in the long-term".
However, he said he wished more progress has been made in the decade since the Illawarra Flame prioject.
"There's no doubt we lost a decade on this, under the previous federal government," he said.
"We've all signed up to new zero emissions by 2050, and we've got to diligently work towards that."
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
