LCI Melbourne Workplace Shortlisted for 2025 Sustainability Awards

We’re excited to share that our Melbourne workplace, designed in close collaboration with Concept Black, has been shortlisted in the 2025 Sustainability Awards, which celebrate innovation and leadership in environmentally responsible design.

This recognition reflects the shared vision between LCI and Concept Black, delivering a fitout that exemplifies sustainability, cultural meaning, and human-centred design. From the outset, LCI set a clear objective: to create a sustainable workplace aligned with our environmental values, with low-impact principles embedded across every building services discipline.

From the outset, sustainability informed every design and engineering decision:

• More than 50% of existing furniture and 80% of ceilings and lighting were retained and repurposed—reducing waste, minimising embodied carbon, and accelerating delivery.
• The design avoided unnecessary demolition, instead reconfiguring existing elements to enhance collaboration, wayfinding, and spatial functionality.
• The project is targeting a 6-Star Green Star Interiors rating, reflecting a commitment to best-practice sustainability outcomes within a retrofit context.
• The result is a high-performing, low-impact workplace that demonstrates sustainable outcomes are achievable—even within constrained, existing spaces.

This vision was led by our Melbourne ESD Team Lead, Thorsten Padeffke, and supported by our broader engineering team. Concept Black took the brief and developed a design that respected the existing tenancy, brought new life to the space, and drew on LCI’s internal style guidelines.

In parallel, the project reinforced social sustainability by embedding cultural meaning throughout the design. A commissioned artwork by Ngarrindjeri artist Emma Stenhouse was a key design driver, informing the material palette, lighting, and colours to create a visual narrative that reflects connection to Country and celebrates First Nations identity.

LCI was responsible for the complete building services design, including:

• Mechanical
• Electrical
• Hydraulic
• Fire Protection
• Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD).

We acknowledge the design leadership and award submission by Concept Black and wish them, and all finalists, the very best in this year’s Sustainability Awards.