The Victorian Government’s Department of Human Services has engaged the Beyond Behaviour Change research team to undertake an evaluation of a sustainable housing project in Horsham .
The focus of the research is on four public housing units built to best practice environmental sustainable design principles. The units are intended to lower utility bills, improve indoor comfort and provide greater resilience to predicted climate change impacts. The evaluation project aims to inform future policy development at the DHS.
The Horsham Catalyst project involves four new two-bedroom homes completed in 2011 in Horsham, a region vulnerable to temperature extremes.The houses feature leading edge residential environmental design, including passive solar design, high insulation achieving an 8.9 star rating, solar panels for electricity, a solar hot water system, double glazing and drought tolerant landscaping.In order to assess costs and benefits, a three year monitoring period of the project’s performance is underway: