New designs offer hope for affordable housing in sky-high Melbourne

(habitusliving.com)

Across the globe, says architect Jeremy McLeod, there is a fantastic culture of living in apartments. 

In Melbourne though, Mr McLeod said, people generally choose an apartment only if they can't afford a house – because good apartments are so rare, or so expensive.
Mr McLeod's firm Breathe Architecture designed The Commons, the "deep green" apartments that swept state and national architecture awards last year.

Now, in a uniquely Melbourne model that they hope could revolutionise the local development industry, Mr McLeod has teamed with six prominent architects, and investors. 

They want to construct a Brunswick complex to challenge the way the city builds apartments - and then repeat it elsewhere in Melbourne. The group of investors includes architects such as Six Degrees, Andrew Maynard and Clare Cousins, and has raised $2.7 million to kickstart The Nightingale, a 20-apartment development across the road from The Commons. 

Like The Commons, it sits along the Upfield train line and won't have any car parking. The money saved on parking and other features it won't have - air conditioning and second bathrooms, for instance - will go back into energy saving and other tricks to save on construction and ongoing costs.

Also cut to lower costs were real estate agents, marketing agents and display suites. "We don't need to sell someone a dream about what it is they're buying into," Mr McLeod said.

Demand for a successor to The Commons has been so strong that, on Wednesday, a ballot was started to help select buyers of the new apartments, to sell for between $400,000 and $645,000. 

The project doesn't have approval from Moreland Council, which will consider two objections and 64 letters of support next month.

(The Age)