Futurespace to wind down for neurodivergent design consultancy
FutureSpace is morphing into a consultancy specialising in strategy, advisory and research around designing for neurodiversity, under the new company NeuroHaven.Co.
Angela Ferguson founded the original company as an interior design firm that took on designing for neurodiversity but is now winding it down to focus on this new specialist sector. It’s more closely aligned with her ongoing PhD research and her commitment to “designing for neurodiversity, inclusion, and human potential”.
Ferguson, there was an element of sadness about the decision; she was excited for what she felt was a “natural evolution towards a more focused advisory and strategic role”.
Canberra gets EV charging apartment register
The Australian Electric Vehicle Association (AEVA) ACT branch has launched its new public register of apartment buildings that support EV charging, and here’s why.
The organisation spokesperson, Dr Peter Campbell, said his organisation has heard from their members that certain apartment owners are “obstructing the installation of EV charging facilities” and deliberately making their buildings unsuitable for EV users. Instead, the register will reward strata complexes that have gone out of their way to install these facilities.
There are currently 22 apartments listed on the register, with some providing individual charging outlets wired back to the individual unit’s meter, and others just providing a small number of shared charging points managed by a third-party operator who bills the user and reimburses the body corporates. Campbell said the low cost solution of a shared charging point could be to let residents charge once or twice a week without giving up the convenience of their own parking space.
A new industrial warehouse goes “vertical”
As industrial land in Melbourne dries up and in fact has “tightened to critical levels”, “developers are increasingly looking up instead of out,” according to Cushman and Wakefield.
The real estate consultancy says that one developer, Momentum Global Development and Construction, is jumping into new opportunities in the market by planning a vertical warehouse project at 101 Keys Road, Moorabbin, 25 kilometres southeast of Melbourne.
The project, where demolition of existing buildings has already started, is for four-storey strata title warehouse units, which are projected to be the tallest in the state on completion.
KEYS101 will offer private industrial suites ranging from 69 to 349 square metres, starting from $450,000. It will target small businesses, e-commerce operators, trades, private investors and buyers of collectibles.
Tenants will also receive a land tax saving of 90 per cent or more compared to traditional single-level industrial warehouses because of the smaller land area.
What we’re reading
Data centre lobby is trying to avoid real regulations
According to energy writer Ketan Joshi, writing in Crikey, total emissions for major data centre operators have doubled in four years. Joshi cites work from the Clean Energy Regulator and says the problem of the energy consumed by data centres is so bad that it’s reinvigorating demand for coal and gas.
To add insult to injury, a newly formed lobby group, Data Centres Australia, has been “doing the dance” to get ahead of a backlash by claiming data centres are a “vital cog in the energy transition”.
The lobby group claimed data centre operators sign power purchasing agreements to essentially fund renewable projects and encourage on-site solar installations.
The Fifth Estate has also noted that on site solar was not a realistic option when it came to data centres, purely thanks to the space required.
“Do not underestimate the danger they face doing these dance moves,” writes Joshi. He said, “high polluting industries are pre-empting regulations with voluntary promises of good behaviour for many, many decades now, but they risk over-egging their case and ending up with real regulations instead.”
He noted that the oil and gas industry in the US similarly overstated carbon capture and storage promises, and when the Biden government cracked down on it, “they freaked the f**k out and flipped in microseconds from overpromising CCS to strongly criticising it, like Bob Katter changing moods mid-sentence.”
New AI delivers instant rooftop assessment
Some good news from AI: GreenSketch, a platform for solar and battery valuation, is launching later this month with an AI agent that can deliver instant automated rooftop solar and financial assessments based on the valuation of the solar system design or rooftop. The company will also release its Australia Rooftop Valuation Report, which quantifies the economic value of distributed rooftop energy, which includes $26 billion a year of untapped electricity bill savings across 8.4 million Australian rooftops.