Jury citation
Nightingale Village is a testament to the power of collaboration. Working with a community-focused approach, an alliance of architects set about creating a new village precinct within an established suburb and former industrial zone. Their intent was to create a fossil-fuel-free development in a central location, providing long-term homes for a diverse community. The result is a playful, lively and clearly much-loved series of buildings, each with its own character but sharing a common vision.
Six buildings house 203 homes and eight commercial tenancies, allowing for residents to mix and for community and village culture to grow. A reductionist approach was employed from the outset, with all homes having only the essential spaces. Functions that can be shared are used as opportunities to bring people together, with buildings offering combined laundry spaces and rooftop gardens. This allows smaller footprints for individual units and an overall reduction in building size. The village is gas-free and operates with a shared energy network that draws from one substation connected to rooftop solar across the buildings. Power, internet, water and sewerage link to the site via a single point, and an innovative system allows residential toilets to be run with recycled water. All irrigation is fed by rainwater harvested on site. Reliance on the single car for transport has been reconsidered, with parking provided for bikes and share-cars only; it will be interesting to see whether this influences residents’ transport habits over the years to come.
The success of this project on so many levels can be traced back to the open collaboration between highly skilled individual architecture studios. The development demonstrates the merit of sharing information, and the social and environmental benefits of a design that considers more than the residents alone.
Nightingale Village is located in Brunswick, Victoria on Wurundjeri Country and was reviewed by Alexis Kalagas in Architecture Australia March/April 2023.
Project credits
Architect: Architecture Architecture, Austin Maynard Architects, Breathe, Clare Cousins Architects, Hayball and Kennedy Nolan; Project team Nick James, Michael Roper, Daria Selleck, Mark Austin, Andrew Maynard, Mark Stranan, Jeremy McLeod, Madeline Sewall, Frances McLennan, Bettina Robinson, Fairley Batch, Bonnie Herring, Ali Galbraith, Emily McBain, Giles Freeman, Marie Penny, Mark Ng, Patricia Bozyk, Renee Eleni Agudelo, Sarah Mealey, Shannon Furness, Clare Cousins, Oliver Duff, Tara Ward, Candice Chan, Laura Norris-Hones, Luc Baldi, Rob Stent, Bianca Hung, James Luxton, Gianni Iacobaccio, Robert Mosca, Yuyen Low, Saifee Akil, Ela Rajapackiyam, Patrick Kennedy, Rachel Nolan, Michael Macleod, Victoria Reeves, Elizabeth Campbell, Tamara Veltre, Oliver Monk; Builder: Hacer Group; Urban planner: Hansen Partnerships; Quantity surveyor: WT Partnerships ; Engineer: WSP; Building surveyor: Steve Watson and Partners; Access consultant: Access Studio; ESD consultant: WSP, Umow Lai; Wayfinding: Olax; Arborist: Tree Logic; Traffic: GTA Consultants; Waste management: Leigh Design; Landscape and urban design: Openwork; Landscape consultant: Amanda Oliver Gardens, Eckersley Garden Architecture; Project manager: Fontic; Urban design: Breathe, Andy Fergus; ESD consultant: Hip V Hype Sustainability.
