Family move into house to test latest low-energy gadgets

A family of three are moving into a green technology-packed home to test life in an energy-constrained future.

As the federal government puts the finishing touches to its new climate change policy, one Sydney family is embarking on a year-long experiment to live in an energy-constrained home of the future.

Clare Joyce, Michael Adams and their daughter Ava will live rent free for a year in a house in Newington crammed with solar technology and gadgets designed to slash greenhouse gas emissions and water use.

The garden has a semi-transparent solar pergola, which generates electricity and provides shade, rooftop photovoltaic panels, a miniature power plant and other energy- and water-saving devices, courtesy of EnergyAustralia and the state government's climate change fund.

"We have an ordinary family moving into an extraordinary house to put it to the test," said the Energy Minister, Paul Lynch.

The family would write a blog about their time in a high-tech fishbowl and the information would be used to help design energy policy, the government said. ''It will be a learn-as-we-go experience, testing different approaches and trying to understand exactly where all our energy is going,'' Ms Joyce said.

''We wanted to do something (about sustainability) on an individual level. There are lots of things in this world where you don't think you can have an impact but the individual has to contribute otherwise the collective never will.''

The family is moving to the new home week. Mr Adams said they did not know what to expect but Ava, 4, had been in training with copies of the futuristic 1960s cartoon The Jetsons.

''She watched pretty much all of the second series on DVD and she'll probably be disappointed that she doesn't get to have a flying car,'' Mr Adams said.

EnergyAustralia said the family was chosen from 160 applicants, including some from as far afield as New York and Sweden.

"We'll see warts and all what works and what doesn't,'' said the managing director of EnergyAustralia, George Maltabarow.

The company is awaiting news from the federal government this week, with cabinet examining options for an energy-efficiency plan that could include a scheme to encourage providers to cut consumption.

What makes this house low-energy?

Pergola with semi-transparent solar panels generates up to 0.5 kilowatts of electricity.
Kitchen bench top sand floor made from bamboo and recycled paper and rubber.
Meters for individual taps.
Recycled water for us in toilets and washing machine.
LED "chandelier" uses 25 per cent of energy needed by conventional downlights.
Garden with 20 types of native plants will never need watering once established.
Kitchen appliances can be turned of and off remotely via the internet.
Ceramic fuel cell generates electricity from natural gas.
Extra power from rooftop solar panels.
Energy-saving heat-exchange air-conditioner.
Heat pump clothes dryer.

.. from smh

Election 2010

Surry Hills is city's hot spot of creativity, GPS study reveals.

Surry Hills is a Mecca to Sydney's artists.

That's the preliminary findings of a study that ''tagged'' a group of designers with satellite technology and tracked their movements around Sydney, in an attempt to find out where the people who fuel Sydney's creative economy live, work and play.

Fifteen designers wore small GPS tracking devices, similar to the ones used in cars, for several days, which recorded their location every five seconds.

While the fact that almost everyone in the first group of 15 visited the inner-city artistic hub of Surry Hills will come as little surprise, the study found other areas like the lower north shore or south-west rated strongly, too.

The results, said the head of the study, Wollongong University's Professor Chris Gibson, suggest state and local governments may need to rethink where public galleries, artists' studios and other pieces of ''creative infrastructure'' are located in the future.

''The story that we're getting is that there is a more complex geography to their activities than you might expect,'' he said.

''It tells different councils that they're part of the creative economy … incubating the creative industry should not just be left to the City of Sydney or Marrickville Council.''

Designer Simeon King, who admitted he was probably ''a stereotype'' because he lives in Glebe and works in Surry Hills, was one of the participants in the study. He said he would consider moving further west in Sydney if the cultural activities and spaces were there to support the arts.

''You need to move some of the critical cultural infrastructure out there,'' he said. ''Otherwise there is always going to be this magnetism towards the inner city.''

The findings of the pilot study, called Catch and Release, were presented as part of the Creative Sydney program at the Vivid festival on Saturday.

Urban planner Rod Simpson told the audience former industrial areas such as Surry Hills and Newtown were once natural homes for the creative industries because of their mix of cheap, dense housing, small warehouses and bustling, cosmopolitan main streets.

The Catch and Release project will tag the movements of several other creative industries in the coming months.

When wombats attack...

A SURVIVOR of the Black Saturday bushfires feared for his life yesterday during a wombat mauling that lasted up to half an hour and ended only when a neighbour saved him.

Bruce Kringle, who lost his house in the deadly blaze in Victoria last year, was in hospital last night recovering from bites and lacerations sustained in the attack.

Mr Kringle, 60, a painter, is living in a caravan until his house in Flowerdale is rebuilt. He was walking down the caravan steps yesterday when the wombat appeared out of nowhere and attacked his legs, bringing him to the ground.

The animal continued to bite and scratch Mr Kringle as he tried to escape.

Terrified that it would tear his throat out, he eventually lay on the wombat until a neighbour, known only as ''Rob'', heard his cries for help.

Rob told Mr Kringle to get off the animal, then killed it with a blow from the back of an axe.

Yvonne Kringle said the family, who have lived in the area for 28 years, was shocked a wombat could inflict so much damage.

She said her husband, who is believed to take medication after suffering an unrelated heart attack, thought he might die.

''He was too scared to get up,'' she said. ''Every time he tried to run away initially it kept running after him. It kept on going him.

''Obviously it was quite angry or very sick. He's got bites all over him. The doctors said they can't believe how many bites he's got.''

She said the wombat had been seen headbutting a glass door at another property before it was chased away minutes before the attack.

One neighbour said the wombat was about 60 centimetres long, meaning it would be at least two years old, according to a wildlife expert. Experts were divided about why a wombat, which are herbivores and usually docile, would attack a human. A wildlife officer at the state Department of Sustainability and Environment, Geoff McClure, said in 34 years he had never heard a story like this, saying the most aggressive he had seen a wombat was when they were cornered.

He said the animal had probably been hand reared and might have been bumping the glass to draw attention to itself.

But Phillipa Mason, a veterinarian at Healesville Sanctuary, said the animal probably had the skin condition mange which could cause blindness, leaving it scared and defensive. But a neighbour, Don Dawson, said: ''It looked quite healthy apart from the fact it was dead.''

Festival to curry favour with India

PARRAMATTA will host a new festival, Parramasala, to celebrate the colour and flair of India in November.

The Australian Festival of South Asian Arts will be held from November 4 to 10.

Western Sydney Minister and Granville MP David Borger said Parramatta and the northern district had the biggest population of Indian and South Asian communities and was the perfect location for a colourful Bollywood-style festival.

The festival will offer a diverse multi-arts and cultural event with the highest quality of professional content, curated by the festival’s inaugural chief executive officer and artistic director, Philip Rolfe.

Premier Kristina Keneally said Parramasala would demonstrate NSW’s rich cultural heritage and be a premier arts event for Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

“It embraces the cultural diversity of western Sydney and sends a clear message about the importance of Indian culture to the state,” she said.

The festival announcement followed the government’s plan to establish a round-table meeting of ministers, agencies and Indian leaders to address the safety concerns of international students and the Indian community.

The first meeting with Indian community leaders will be held on Wednesday, February 10.

Pedapod on the streets of Sydney

We were in the city on Saturday and saw this Pedapod zipping along Macquarie street. It's the Aussie version of a trishaw.


How awesome.
.. Next time I see one, I plan to be in it.

The Night Noodle Markets are coming!

Mark it in your calendars, the Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park are happening Mon-Fri, 13–24 Oct, 5pm-9.30pm. See you there.

BYO appetite.

Kraft crumbles: stupid iSnack2.0 name for new Vegemite scrapped

Kraft has bowed to public pressure and ditched the name iSnack2.0 for its new Vegemite-cream cheese blend.

“We have been overwhelmed by the passion for Vegemite and the new product. The new name has simply not resonated with Australians. Particularly the modern technical aspects associated with,’’ said Kraft spokesman Simon Talbot.

In a statement this afternoon, the company said it would once again throw open the challenge to Australians to come up with a new name.

But the company denied it had all been a publicity stunt.

"At no point in time has the new Vegemite name been about initiating a media publicity stunt," Mr Talbot, said. "We are proud custodians of Vegemite and have always been aware that it is the people's brand and a national icon."

Thousands of the jars with the new name will be distributed to supermarkets ready to go on sale, ensuring that the soon to be scrapped name will quickly become a collectors' item.

"Our Kraft Foods storeroom currently has thousands of jars of the iSnack2.0 named Vegemite. This product will be distributed around Australia, and will continue to be sold in supermarkets for months to come - until Australia decides upon a new name," Mr Talbot said.

“Australians and New Zealanders will shortly be invited to help us make a choice. Please bear with us for the next 48 hours as we finalise how Australians and New Zealanders can decide the new name through an independent popularity vote."

The number of negative comments posted on blogs and on social networking sites is now running into the thousands, prompting Kraft to step back from the new name, which was chosen from 48,000 as part of a competition to get Australians to name the new spread.

Almost 3 million of the promotional ‘‘Name Me’’ jars were sold during the naming competition, suggesting it had been popular.

But the new name has roused almost universal indignation

Australian Pirate Party launches

After winning 7.1 per cent of Swedish votes in this year's European Parliament elections, The Pirate Party has opened up a branch in Australia and plans to contest the next federal election.

The party, which will campaign on a platform of anti-internet censorship and the decriminalisation of non-commercial file sharing, has already signed up 550 members, enough for it to register as a party with the Australian Electoral Commission.

It plans to hold internal elections for leadership positions - president, general secretary, treasurer and their deputies - on October 7.

But party spokesman Brendan Molloy was quick to point out that free file sharing was only one aspect of the overall mission, which was to "bolster our nation's Democratic conventions".

"We've here to actively change the landscape of Australian politics forever, by advocating freer copyright and protection of our civil liberties, especially against [Communications Minister Stephen] Conroy's censorship regime, which is not welcome in Australia," he said.

"We also have a strong stance for the reform of the patent system to be much fairer, especially in regards to pharmaceuticals and software."

In the European Parliament elections in June, the Pirate Party won 7.1 per cent of Swedish votes, allowing its leader, Christian Engstroem, to take one of Sweden's 18 seats in the European Parliament.

The group gained significant traction in Sweden following this year's introduction of laws that criminalised file sharing and the sentencing of four Swedes to a year in jail for running illegal download site The Pirate Bay.

In the recent German elections, The Pirate Party won 2 per cent of the vote, short of the 5 per cent required to gain a seat in the German Parliament. Spiegel Online reported that the party won as much as 13 per cent of votes for first-time male voters.

Further, in the German city council elections held in August, the group gained seats in the Munster and Aachen councils.

The party has branches in 35 countries and they all co-operate via a collective called Pirate Party International.

The Australian branch is headed by a University of Western Sydney law student, Rodney Serkowski. He was not available for comment but told ITNews he would contest the next federal election provided he was permitted to register as a political party.

The party argues that file sharing should be legalised and, far from being detrimental to artists, was one of their best means of advertising their music.

It is worried by recent revelations that Conroy is considering legislation that would have persistent file sharers disconnected from the internet.

"Our policies are all geared towards copyright reform, patent reform, anti-censorship, non-commercial file sharing, policy in regards to having Digital Rights Management abolished and policy supporting the right to privacy of every Australian," Molloy said.

Despite its clear overseas success, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft does not appear to be alarmed by the presence of the Pirate Party in Australia.

"It will be interesting to see if a party advocating illegal activity is able to contest the election," a spokeswoman said.

"If they are able, perhaps they could do a preference deal with the Shoplifting Party."

Online activist group GetUp campaigns on similar issues to the Pirate Party and has obtained more than 115,000 signatures for its petition opposing Conroy's internet censorship policy.

GetUp chief executive officer Simon Sheikh said his organisation might decide to work with the Pirate Party on campaigns but could not support any individual party directly "because we're a non-partisan organisation".

"In saying that, we believe in intellectual property reform and we believe in protecting Australia's internet from Senator Conroy's censorship agenda," he said.

A spokesman for Conroy did not respond to calls requesting comment.

Tourists using Uluru as toilet may have killed off shrimp

Tourists may have killed off a rare species of shrimp by relieving themselves on Australia's iconic Uluru, or Ayers Rock, a report said yesterday.

Biologist Brian Timms said his research had showed one species of small inland shrimp living in pools atop the monolith had become extinct while another had thrived.

"The people going up the rock somehow have affected the animals which live in the pools, possibly by peeing on the rock and pooing on the rock," Timms told state radio.

The Branchinella latzi species had not been seen on Uluru since the 1970s, and would have been susceptible to "enrichment" of the pool's water, he added.


"Certainly if (tourists) go up, they should be behaving themselves, not pooing on the rock," Timms said.

However, a species of fairy shrimp had survived, probably because it was "widespread and tough," according to Timms.

Australia is mulling a ban on tourists climbing the rock, which is a sacred part of Aboriginal tribes' creation mythology.

Tour operators claim visitors are often caught short on the arduous climb, and most had a "toilet roll tucked away" in case of emergency.

Park officials in July announced plans to end the popular climb on cultural and safety grounds, a stance endorsed by Peter Garrett, Australia's environment minister and former frontman of rock band Midnight Oil.

Signs at the site ask people not to climb the rock, out of respect for the Aboriginal community, but one-third of the 350,000 annual visitors still do so.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said it would be "very sad" if tourists were kept off the desert icon, which was handed back to Aborigines in 1985 and is one of the nation's most recognisable landmarks.

A couple more pics taken over the last fortnight

.. Om nom nom nom

Stop Australian Internet Censorship!

Australia’s laws on Internet censorship are, theoretically, amongst the most restrictive in the Western world. However, the restrictive nature of the laws has been combined with almost complete lack of interest in enforcement from the agencies responsible.

Hackers break into police computer as sting backfires

An Australian Federal Police boast, on the ABC's Four Corners program last night, about officers breaking up an underground hacker forum, has backfired after hackers broke into a federal police computer system.

Security consultants say police appear to have been using the computer as a honeypot to collect information on members of the forum but the scheme came undone after the officers forgot to set a password.

Last Wednesday, federal police officers in co-operation with Victoria Police executed a search warrant on premises in Brighton, Melbourne, connected to the administrator of an underground hacking forum, r00t-y0u.org, which had about 5000 members.

Many details of the investigation were revealed for the first time on Four Corners last night.

After the raid, the federal police covertly assumed control of the forum and began using it to gather evidence about members.

"We can operate in a covert activity here fairly seamlessly with no harm to our members with continual and actual significant penetration," Neil Gaughan, national manager of the federal police's High Tech Crimes Operation, told Four Corners.

However, what the federal police did not know was that hackers had already cottoned on to their plan.

Police were monitoring the forum by logging into the account of the administrator they had raided, but this aroused suspicion among members who knew the raid had taken place.

A hacker broke into the federal police's computer system and, according to a source close to the investigation, accessed both police evidence and intelligence about federal police systems such as its IP addresses.

A spokeswoman for the federal police confirmed that the hacker broke into a computer system used in its investigation but denied that any evidence was compromised, saying the computer was not connected to other federal police systems.

"The AFP has identified a person whom [sic] has attempted to access the stand-alone computer system and we are currently working with our law enforcement partners regarding this matter," the spokeswoman said.

The hacker appears to have been provoked by a message published on the r00t-y0u.org site by the federal police, warning members they were under surveillance and that "all member IP addresses have been logged", with some arrests having already been made.

In two provocative messages published on anonymous document-sharing site pastebin.com, the hacker slammed the federal police for "making it sound like they can bust 'hackers', when all they have done is busted a COUPLE script kiddies". "Script kiddies" is hacker parlance for novice hackers.

The second of these messages contained several links to screenshots allegedly proving that the writer had access to the federal police's server.

These included shots of files containing fake IDs and stolen credit card numbers, as well as the federal police's server information.

The hacker then defaced the r00t-y0u.org website with the same message it had posted on the anonymous document-sharing site.

The federal police spokeswoman said: "The information posted on the http://pastebin.com website is information contained on a stand-alone [federal police] system designed specifically to be used in investigations such as this.

"The information consists of directory file names of previously compromised credentials. No information or files exist that have, or could have, been compromised."

The hacker wrote "I couldn't stop laughing" on seeing that the federal police's server was running Windows, which is known among hacker communities for being insecure. Police had also "left the MYSQL password blank".

"These dipshits are using an automatic digital forensics and incident response tool," the hacker wrote.

"All of this [hacking] had been done within 30-40 minutes. Could of been faster if I didn't stop to laugh so much."

Shaon Diwakar, a security consultant at Hack Labs in Sydney, explained how the hack occurred.

"The attacker has discovered that the server didn't have a password for its database application and he has logged on ... and, using a technique called SQL injection, he created a PHP file on the disk and browsed through that PHP file to get complete control of that particular server," he said.

Diwakar said the hacker would have had access to anything that was stored on the computer.

"When they took this action they should have known that they would have been a big target, so they should have taken more precautions," he said.

The federal police said it had yet to charge anyone over the r00t-y0u.org forum bust, but "numerous items" were seized and the investigation was ongoing.

It declined to comment further on the case.

Is Wakame seaweed heading towards your plate?

WHEN chef Sean Connolly asked Wayne Hulme from Christie's Seafood if he could source something unique for a seafood platter, it began a chain of events that brought the first fresh Australian wakame seaweed into Sydney.

It's now appearing on restaurant plates, including at Rockpool and Sean's Panaroma, and is on sale for the home cook.

Following Connolly's request, Hulme consulted a Tasmanian periwinkle diver, who went on a reconnaissance mission at St Helens and found wakame in pristine waters.

Called undaria pinnatifida, or apron-ribbon vegetable in China, the sea vegetable began growing off the east coast of Tasmania in the 1980s.

“It is an introduced species from the ballast of Japanese ships,” Hulme says. "The plant's ability to adapt is on show as it really doesn't belong in our waters.”

Already harvested for pharmaceutical uses, the Tasmanian authorities granted the first wakame harvesting licence for human consumption to the diver. "I don't think anyone had ever asked before," Hulme says.

He is permitted to remove 10 to 15 kilograms a week and Hulme credits Connolly with “motivating me to find something new. He was after samphire, which is available in limited quantities.”

Dried seaweed is a familiar sight in NSW shops but the fresh, Australian-grown product is new.

All seaweed varieties, including wakame, are without leaves, stalks or roots. Their leaf-like blades absorb solar energy and minerals from sea water. A stipe, similar to a stalk, secures the plant to the sea floor. Only the seaweed blades are harvested, which can be eaten raw or cooked.

Of 8000 seaweed species, only 10 are commonly eaten, referred to as sea vegetables. With its delicate, briny flavour, wakame adds umami (savouriness) to food and is used to enhance soups, simmered dishes and vinegared salads. It can also be blanched or made into chips by quick frying in hot oil.

“It's a seafood vegetable and that is how chefs are treating it, even looking at serving it as a side dish,” Hulme says.

Along with Connolly, Neil Perry features fresh wakame on Rockpool's menu; Sean Moran from Sean's Panorama is a fan; and Akira Urata from Teppanyaki uses it.

"I had never seen it before but we just had to get some," says Rockpool chef Phil Wood. "We are using it in an abalone dish. It's head and shoulders above anything else."

At Sean's Panaroma, the wakame is wrapped around steamed snapper. "We've been working with it to find its best way . . . we weren't sure at first . . . but it's been very interesting," says chef-owner Sean Moran.

Hulme collects about 10 kilograms of wakame, airfreighted from Tasmania, at Sydney Airport every fortnight. He says home cooks can lay small strips over oysters or use it in soups and seaweed salads with sesame oil and chilli.

When wakame first appeared in Tasmanian waters, it created concern as it is considered a marine pest. Studies have since shown the seaweed has a less insidious effect on local ecosystems than other exotic species, such as the Northern Pacific seastar, which also arrived in ballast water. An annual weed that effectively dies off each year, wakame doesn't compete with native kelps but thrives in places that have already been disturbed. If it wasn't for the abundant growth of wakame in St Helens, the edible seaweed could have easily been missed.

Where wakame is harvested from the wild in Tasmania, supplies in Japan, Korea and China are cultivated on ropes. Seaweed spores are seeded onto lengths of string in seawater tanks on land, then transported on to rafts moored offshore.

The vegetable grows to about one metre long and up to 30 centimetres wide. The tattered-shaped blades undulate in the water with the movement of the waves.

“The colour is so natural, to the point that you can see natural flecks when held up against the light,” Hulme says.

Fresh wakame is sold at Christie's Seafood, Sydney Fish Market, for $3.50/100g.

First Australians were Indian: research

CLUES about how the first Aborigines arrived in Australia have been unveiled by Indian scientists. Based on a series of genetic tests, they believe Aborigines travelled from Africa to Australia via India.

Dr Raghavendra Rao and researchers from the Indian-government backed Anthropological Survey of India project found unique genetic mutations were shared between modern-day Indians and Aborigines, suggesting Australia's indigenous people had spent time on the subcontinent.



The scientists did genetic tests on 966 individuals from 26 of India's "relic populations" and identified seven people from central Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic tribes who shared genetic traits only found in Aborigines. "We found certain mutations in the DNA sequences of the Indian tribes … that are specific to Aborigines," Dr Rao said.




"This … suggests that the Aborigine population migrated to Australia via the so-called southern route."

Scientists believe the first modern humans began spreading around the world from Africa about 50,000 years ago. But little is known about which routes they took.

Some studies have suggested they used a single southern route stretching from the Horn of Africa, across the Red Sea into Arabia and southern Asia.



They were then believed to have moved along the coastlines of southern Asia, South-East Asia and Indonesia before arriving in Australia about 45,000 years ago.

Dr Rao said the new research, published by the online scientific journal BMC Evolutionary Biology yesterday, indicated there was direct DNA evidence about how modern humans spread from Africa 50,000 years ago. "In this respect, populations in the Indian subcontinent harbour DNA footprints of the earliest expansion out of Africa," he said.

Local Yum Cha & Zone 3 goodness

.. mmMMmmm ..

... And that's a take! Another weekend successfully navigated.

Saturday we went over to the Ryde-Eastwood Leagues club to see what the local yum cha was like. 'Surprisingly good' was the answer. I guess mango pancakes aren't strickly yum cha, but wow, they were good. Everything was good though actually. Highly recommended.
.. It was a tough waddle home :)

We went with Allan, a guy I used to work with many years ago, and just happened to meet up in the local supermarket (as you do) and discovered that he lives in the area, which is cool.
Fun times and much, much food was had by all.

more .. mmMMmmm ..

Allan (above)


Probably not Allan.

Today we helped Dali celebrate his 9th birthday with a game of zone3 and stacks of arcade games at the zone3 in five dock. All the games I played must have been broken, there's just no way I could be that bad naturally.

Discovered that those dance dance revolution games are surprisingly difficult.

Just had to post this advertisment from outside the local hardware store :)

Not much really new.. been watching 'The Last Enemy' and thoroughly enjoying it.

Here's the first episode:

Oh, and the other day I received an invite to my 20 YEAR School reunion. Wow. Hard to believe that it's been quite that long, surely someone can't count properly. Perhaps it's me.

Hmmm.. Guess it's time to go back to the home town again. It seems fitting as the last time was there was for the 10 year School reunion..

Random pics taken on the way to work..

Spring is coming.. can you feel it?

What a nice sunny weekend. In a strange twist we actually managed to get out in it a bit.

Friday night we went out for dinner at Billus, an Indian restaurant in Epping to celebrate one of my wife's colleagues birthdays.



Saturday we caught the train into the city and had a poke around Market city and also Glebe Market. Glebe markets was excellent as usual, this was the first time that I've been there since returning from overseas. It was my wifes first Glebe market experience, and I'm happy to report she thoroughly enjoyed herself.

It must have been good, because I've stupidly completely forgotten to take any photos of it for this blog entry. Guess we're going back again soon...

In the meantime, here's a photo of a busker outside Market city playing drums and tunes on beer bottles.

We had lunch at Xiclo, one of my favourite Vietnamese noodle bars in the city.
I'd heard of spring rolls before, but I admit I didn't realise that there were also winter, summer & autumn rolls too. Makes sense after the fact, was a complete surprise at the time though.



Today we tended out balcony garden and bought a vacuum cleaner.. woohoo!
It seriously was about time, we were starting to lose sight of the carpet in places.

Presenting the Sanyo Sc136r - 'Dirt Hunter'
It's not hunting much dirt yet on it's own.. for some reason I have to push it everywhere..

Not much else new to report. Still pretty damn cold at night. Work has been pretty challenging, but I'd much rather that than be bored.

New University building to glow and pulsate, is eco-friendly too

A NEW building chosen to ‘‘shock’’ and ‘‘awe’’ Sydneysiders will dominate the western entry into the city.

The ruling body of the University of Technology Sydney last night endorsed the winning competition design for its $170 million, 12-storey building, for its engineering and IT faculty.

With a knowing nod to future controversy, the university vice chancellor, Ross Milbourne, declared the building that will front Broadway as ‘‘the most significant piece of architecture in Sydney since the Opera House’’.

The building will glow and pulsate with embedded light-emitting diodes at night and will create a juxtaposition with its neighbours including the Carlton and United Brewery site, the former Fairfax office block and the brutalist UTS high rise tower.

Massive uneven aluminium shields strike out from the 12-storey building at acute angles, leaving giant gill-like slits to give the impression of a breathing entity. Binary coding – the foundation of computing and telecommunications – is laser-cut into the shields. The square zeros and dashed ones can be translated into ‘‘University of Technology Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology’’.

The walls and roofs visually merge into a single whole sculpture, albeit one with a five-star environmental rating. A giant, crooked crevasse cuts through the middle of the building to allow natural light to flood down on to pedestrians moving through the atrium and connecting internal walkways.

It is entirely funded by the university, although federal support is being sought for the overall master plan to increase the city campus by a third.

Professor Milbourne said he was shocked when he saw the entry by architects Denton Corker Marshall after the design competition jury presented a shortlist of six entries. ‘‘‘We walked into this room and all the panels for the six entries were up,’’ he said. ‘‘The Denton Corker Marshall building shocked me at first. But I kept coming back to it. I kept thinking this is fantastic. It spells out what we are about: technology innovation and creativity.’’

The design jury chairman, Graham Jahn, said the building was sublime and would transform the idea of the naked building. ‘‘It’s a surprising and artistic contribution. Over time it will be enigmatic and timeless,’’ said Mr Jahn, who is the past president of the Australian Institute of Architects and Guide to Sydney Architecture author.

‘‘I think it’s important that the people of Sydney feel confident enough to encourage new works of architecture and art which will redefine the cityscape and add layers of meaning and stimulation. We should reward difference and inventiveness over the pedestrian.’’

UTS has proposed several new buildings, a green, gallery and coffee shops that would be open to the public and new pedestrian walkways that would link the Broadway district with Chinatown and Darling Harbour.

The Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, saw the design yesterday, and said the building transformed the university, linking it back into the city in an exciting and imaginative way. Her office was impressed with its environmental credentials.

‘‘This is what university buildings should be like – innovative, progressive and sustainable,’’ she said.

Random pics from the last fortnight...

Dinner in progress ..

.. Mask fridge magnets

. Dried fish .

.. lovely incense

.. Easy way to remember the train timetable? Camera phone!

expeditions to the Chinese supermarkets in Eastwood part 1 ..

.. part 2

part 3 ..

.. part 4