Building Smart
Zanetto Builders won three national titles at the 2026 HIA Australian GreenSmart Awards, including Home of the Year for our certified Passivhaus at Blackmans Bay.
On 22 July 2026 in Melbourne, Zanetto Builders won three national titles at the 2026 HIA Australian GreenSmart Awards — including the top honour of the night. It’s the most significant national recognition in our history, and it went to homes we’ve built right here in Tasmania.
Here’s exactly what we won, and — more importantly — what sits behind it.
At the 2026 HIA Australian GreenSmart Awards, Zanetto Builders was named:
Winning any one of these national titles is a career milestone. Winning three in a single night, from Tasmania, is something we’re still taking in. You can see the results for yourself on HIA’s official 2026 HIA Australian GreenSmart Award Winners list, and all of our recognition, past and present, on our awards page.
GreenSmart is the Housing Industry Association’s national sustainability program, and it has been running for more than 25 years. It’s not a marketing badge you apply for — it recognises homes that are genuinely designed and built to perform: energy efficiency, water efficiency, indoor comfort, resource use and the building science that ties it all together.
That matters because “sustainable” and “eco” get thrown around loosely in home building. GreenSmart judges the finished, measurable result. Being named GreenSmart Home of the Year 2026 means an independent national panel looked at everything under the skin of the home — not the render, not the brochure — and rated it the best in the country for the year.
Bluebush is a 287sqm home at Blackmans Bay, looking out over Bruny Island and the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. It’s certified to the Passive House Classic standard — independently verified, not “built to principles” — and if you want the difference explained plainly, we’ve written what certified Passivhaus actually means.
The numbers are what make it exceptional:
That combination is why the home stays warm, dry and clean through a Tasmanian winter on a fraction of the energy a conventional house needs. It’s the same building science we bring to all of our Passivhaus work, and it’s delivered by the largest certified Passive House team in the state.
The third title went to Fysh Place — two independent, all-electric homes on a single coastal title at Stieglitz, on Tasmania’s East Coast. Where Bluebush proves what a single certified home can do, Fysh Place shows the same discipline applied across a multi-dwelling development — two homes designed to run cleanly and efficiently on the coast, with heat-recovery ventilation and no gas connection.
Awards are nice on a wall. What they should tell you, as someone weighing up a builder, is simpler: the way we build has now been independently judged the best in the country for sustainability and performance.
We didn’t chase these titles with a one-off showpiece. Bluebush and Fysh Place were built the same way we build every home — measured, detailed, and honest about the numbers. The airtightness result on Bluebush isn’t luck; it’s what happens when a certified team details every junction properly and then tests it rather than hoping. That’s the standard on offer to any client, whether or not you pursue full certification.
And a high-performance home isn’t only about doing the right thing environmentally — it’s about your power bills. A certified Passivhaus needs roughly 80–90% less heating energy than a typical build, and in this climate heating is the biggest number on the bill. If you want to see what that looks like against your own usage, put your figures through our Passivhaus savings calculator.
To the families who trusted us with Bluebush and Fysh Place, to our tradespeople and site teams, and to the designers and certifiers we worked alongside — these three national titles are yours as much as ours. We’re proud of what we’ve built together, and we’re only getting started.
If cold, damp, expensive-to-run housing is the reason you’re thinking about building, you’re asking the right question — and now you know the answer has a national award behind it.
Talk to our team — or get a 48-hour feasibility on your plans.
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