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Curtin University’s Legacy Living Lab (L3) in Knutsford, Fremantle, is a building designed to be taken apart, reused and studied. Rather than treating sustainability as a finish applied after construction, L3 makes the structure itself a research instrument: industry partners, researchers and community members can test materials, building products, automation and occupant-wellness ideas in a working facility. Its modular construction, reclaimed materials and project-reported emissions comparison illustrate what a circular building can look like, while also showing why such claims need to be read in their stated project context.
What Curtin’s Living Lab is—and where it is
The project covered by the 2020 Architecture & Design story is the Legacy Living Lab, usually shortened to L3. It is a modular circular-economy building at Development WA’s East Village development in Knutsford, Fremantle, Western Australia. Curtin describes it as both a prototype and a research facility: a place where building-industry participants, university researchers and the wider community can meet, trial products and investigate how a building performs.
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That dual role is the point of the “living lab” label. L3 is not simply a demonstration house or an office fitted with recycled products. It is intended to operate as a test environment in which materials, energy use, automation and building wellness can be examined together. Curtin’s project material also identifies product prototyping and industry collaboration as part of the facility’s purpose.
Do not confuse L3 with Curtin’s Building 215 Living Laboratory
Curtin has another project called the Building 215 Living Laboratory. That facility is a teaching and monitoring space in the Engineering Pavilion, completed in 2014. It is separate from L3. The Fremantle project’s circular construction, modular structure and material-reuse claims belong to the Legacy Living Lab, not automatically to Building 215.
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Why the structure is designed for a second life
Conventional construction often assumes that a building will remain in one place and that many of its connections will stay permanent. L3 takes the opposite approach. Curtin says the building was designed to be flexible, disassembled and relocated, so components can be recovered rather than destroyed when a use or site changes.
Mechanical connections instead of permanent bonding
The project description says components are joined mechanically rather than welded, glued or permanently fixed. That distinction matters because reversible connections can make future separation more practical. A panel, finish or structural element that can be removed without demolishing adjacent work has a better chance of being reused, repaired or recycled at a higher value.
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Steel footings and no conventional concrete foundation
Curtin reports that L3 uses recyclable steel footings and avoids a conventional concrete foundation. A foundation system that can be removed or adapted supports the building’s intended flexibility and reduces the amount of material that would normally be committed to a single site. The sources identify the design intent and reported features, but do not provide independent testing of removal time, structural performance or the recovery rate that would be achieved in a later relocation.
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Reclaimed and recycled materials inside the demonstration
L3 makes circular-economy ideas visible through materials that visitors can see and touch. Curtin’s descriptions identify the following examples.
| Building element | Reported material or feature | What the example demonstrates |
|---|---|---|
| Staircase | A roughly 100-year-old Jarrah staircase salvaged from the Dingo Flour Mill | Reuse of an existing, durable building component rather than manufacturing a replacement |
| Floor finishes | Carpet tiles reclaimed from a Perth central-business-district office | Recovery of modular interior finishes from a previous fit-out |
| Outdoor balcony | Recycled tyre rubber and plastics | Use of recovered material streams in an exterior building element |
| Acoustic ceiling panels | Curtin reports that the panels contain 68 per cent recycled PET bottles and other plastics | Recycled content in a performance product designed for sound control |
| Kitchen benchtop | Pressed recycled timber | Conversion of recovered wood into a new, usable surface |
The 68 per cent figure is the share stated in Curtin University’s 2020 announcement. That announcement does not specify the measurement method, the balance of the panel’s content or an independent verification process. It should therefore be read as a project-reported recycled-content claim, not as a universal specification for all acoustic panels.
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Energy, transport and water features
L3 also incorporates operational systems intended to broaden the sustainability demonstration beyond material selection. The project includes solar panels and an on-site electric-vehicle charger. Curtin’s descriptions also refer to water-balancing features, although they do not publish enough technical detail to calculate water savings or identify a particular equipment model.
These features address different parts of a building’s impact. Solar generation can reduce purchased electricity during suitable operating conditions; an EV charger connects the site to lower-emission transport when supplied with an appropriate vehicle and electricity mix; and water-balancing measures can help manage demand or reuse. None of those outcomes can be quantified from the project descriptions alone. The sources do not provide panel capacity, annual generation, charger power, water volumes or a monitored post-occupancy result.
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What the emissions comparison says—and what it does not
Curtin presents L3 as a lower-emissions alternative to a conventional building of similar size, but its published pages use slightly different baselines and wording. Those figures should be kept separate rather than blended into one apparently exact result.
| Source and date | Conventional-build estimate | L3 estimate | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curtin University announcement, 24 November 2020 | About 50 tonnes of CO2 emissions | About 5 tonnes of CO2 emissions | Project comparison quoted from co-creator Roberto Minunno |
| Legacy Living Lab project overview, accessed 2026 | About 50 tonnes of greenhouse-gas-equivalent impact | About 5 tonnes of greenhouse-gas-equivalent impact | Undated project-page comparison |
| Legacy Living Lab FAQ, accessed 2026 | About 45 tonnes of CO2 equivalent | About 5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent | Described on the page as a life-cycle-assessment comparison |
In the 2020 announcement, L3 co-creator Roberto Minunno said: “In the specific example of L3, a traditional build of this size would have created about 50 tonnes of CO2 emissions, whereas the modular Living Lab build only created 5 tonnes of CO2 emissions – a huge benefit for the environment.” The wording is important: he refers to the specific example of L3, not to every modular building.
The different conventional estimates—about 50 tonnes on two Curtin pages and about 45 tonnes on the FAQ—may reflect different life-cycle assumptions, scopes or revisions, but the available project material does not explain the discrepancy. The sources also do not publish a full bill of materials, system boundary, transport assumptions, service-life period, calculation method or independent audit. The figures are therefore useful as Curtin’s case-study comparison, not as a verified universal emissions factor or a ranking of all conventional and modular construction.
How L3 functions as a research facility
A living lab needs activity as well as low-impact components. Curtin says researchers worked with industry partners to review materials, energy consumption, automation and building wellness. That creates several overlapping lines of investigation.
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Materials and product prototyping
Manufacturers and researchers can examine how alternative materials perform in a real building context rather than only in a laboratory sample. The reclaimed staircase, carpet tiles, recycled-plastic acoustic panels and recycled-timber benchtop make the circular approach tangible, while the facility’s prototype role allows new products or assemblies to be explored with industry involvement.
Energy and automation
Solar generation and building controls provide a setting for studying how systems operate together. Curtin’s description identifies energy consumption and automation as research interests, but it does not publish a performance dataset in the supplied project material. Readers should not infer a particular energy rating, annual saving or control-system result from the presence of those features.
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Building wellness and community engagement
Because L3 is intended as a meeting and demonstration space, people can discuss how materials and systems affect the experience of occupying a building. Curtin includes building wellness among the areas reviewed with partners. That scope is broader than energy efficiency: it can include the suitability of spaces, acoustic conditions, comfort and the relationship between a building and its users. The project pages do not state a single wellness score or a completed human-subject study.
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Plan the end of use at the beginning
L3’s strongest lesson is procedural. If a project may need to move, expand or change use, designers can select connections and foundations that make those changes possible. Mechanical fixing, accessible components and clear information about what is installed are more useful for future recovery than a sustainability claim added after construction is complete.
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Separate reuse from recycled content
The project combines two strategies that are often treated as interchangeable. Reusing the old Jarrah staircase and office carpet tiles keeps existing components in service. Recycled PET panels, tyre rubber, plastics and pressed recycled timber use material that has already entered a waste stream to make something new. Both can reduce demand for virgin resources, but their logistics, durability and future recovery routes differ.
Make performance claims traceable
A credible circular-building demonstration needs more than an attractive materials list. It should identify the source of each recovered component, the proportion of recycled content, the expected service life, maintenance requirements and the assumptions behind any carbon comparison. L3’s published information provides useful examples and headline figures, while also leaving some of those technical details unstated.
Use a building as a shared test platform
Research facilities can shorten the distance between a product concept and practical adoption. Industry partners can see how an assembly fits, researchers can monitor selected questions, and community participants can encounter the ideas in a recognizable place. That shared setting is why L3 is more than a catalogue of recycled finishes.
How to interpret the project’s sustainability claims
For readers assessing L3 as a model for another project, the most responsible interpretation is specific rather than absolute.
- Established by Curtin’s project descriptions: L3 is a modular facility designed for flexibility, disassembly and relocation; it uses recyclable steel footings, mechanical connections, identified reclaimed and recycled materials, solar panels, an EV charger and water-balancing features.
- Reported but method-limited: the acoustic panels’ 68 per cent recycled-content figure and the comparison of about 5 tonnes for L3 with about 45 or 50 tonnes for a conventional build.
- Not established in the available material: a universal carbon saving for modular buildings, a guaranteed future relocation, a quantified water or energy reduction, product-level performance results, or independent verification of every material claim.
This distinction does not diminish the project. It clarifies what a case study can demonstrate: a different design approach, a collection of real material choices and a place to investigate performance. It does not by itself prove that every project using one of those choices will achieve the same result.
Why the Legacy Living Lab matters
L3 showcases sustainable building by joining three ideas that are often separated: circular material use, reversible construction and ongoing research. The salvaged Jarrah stair and reclaimed carpet show that existing components can be part of a new building. Mechanical connections and steel footings express the possibility of taking a structure apart. Solar, water and automation features extend the discussion into operation. Finally, the living-lab format gives researchers, industry and the community a place to test and question those decisions.
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The project’s emissions figures should be quoted with their source and assumptions, especially because Curtin pages give different conventional-build baselines. Read that way, L3 is a valuable, concrete demonstration of how a building can be designed as a recoverable resource and a research platform—not a blanket certification that modular construction always produces a particular carbon result.
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