Ecological footprint of Canberra

The 2010 Walter Burley Griffin Memorial Lecture will be presented by Professor Brenda Vale and Doctor Robert Vale, 6pm, 4 November 2010 in the at James O Fairfax Theatre, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Seats are limited, so RSVP the Australian Institute of Architects ACT Chapter: act@raia.com.au

The Vales are sustainable housing pioneers, with their 1975 book "The Autonomous House" (new edition in 2002: "The New Autonomous House: Design and Planning for Sustainability"). The Vales developed the NABERS building rating system for the Australian Government. Work is under-way to adopt NABERS for measuring the energy efficiency of computer data centres.

In their talk they will look at how Canberra would be if its citizens were to adopt a sustainable ecological footprint.

Last week the ACT Government held a Canberra 2030 Planning Workshop. My suggestion was to triple Canberra's population (and density) to 1 million people. With the use of sustainable technologies, the population increase could be implemented while reducing stresses on the environment and using no more land.