20 Feb – 3 March 2019
Sustainable Living Festival
Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne
Take the #IceBoxChallengeMelbourne and discover the benefits of high performance building and construction. Great prizes to be won!
About the Ice Box Challenge
The #IceBoxChallengeMelbourne is a contest and an public experiment to demonstrate how a home can be super energy efficient, comfortable AND healthy. The Ice Boxes will be left outside in the sun for 12 days. When they are opened, the amount of ice left in each box will be measured. How much ice is left shows how well each Ice Box keeps out the summer heat.The design, construction technique, choice of building components all affect the internal space and therefore affect energy consumption, our health and comfort too. Better building design can help us reduce our carbon pollution without changing our behaviour. Energy-efficient homes are comfortable, quiet and healthier to live in.
Why High Performance Buildings?
Quite simply, it’s how we build & feel better.
High-performance buildings are reliable, affordable, comfortable buildings that use energy efficiently, so you’re heating or cooling only your home and not the outdoors. They stay comfortable and quiet throughout the year, including through summer heatwaves, winter storms and power outages. The buildings use up to 90% less energy for heating and cooling than other buildings do, while maintaining good indoor ventilation and air quality. They are easy to maintain. They are also affordable to build, own, live in and work in.
Australian Passive House Association promotes the international Passive House (Passivhaus) high-performance building standard as a simple, quality-assured approach to designing and constructing better buildings.
The challenge is provided by Australian Passive House Association, with the support of members of the Queen Victoria Market, local construction industry and the City of Melbourne. A Passive House approach is rapidly becoming a favoured and well-understood method of achieving high performance building enclosures in the City of Melbourne and beyond.

The Australian Passive House Association is running the Ice Box Challenge, with support from the City of Melbourne, Queen Victoria Markets, and members of the local construction and design industry – Thank you to our sponsors and contributors.


Questions or comments? Contact us through the form below.
