Nightingale Preston

Nightingale Preston is about a moment in time. An inflection point, a fork in the road.

The site is on Wurundjeri country, in Melbourne’s north, tied to three histories. A pre-colonial history of wooded grasslands, of a rich biodiverse open landscape, a post-colonial history of industry and rail infrastructure and more recently, a residential history, an island site of monocultural social housing, a failed attempt at public good.

Nightingale Preston, however, looks to the future. A future that pays homage to its past, that looks to regenerate the landscape and the planet while building equity and community. This project sits as part of the broader Preston Crossing, a precinct project led by MAB in collaboration with Nightingale. An all-electric precinct, a precinct stitching together the housing continuum from social housing, Not-for-Profit housing for first home buyers, small footprint housing for singles, market apartments and market townhouses for growing families. A precinct of buildings and housing designed by leading architects, to bring richness and diversity to the streets, but all stitched together via a series of lush parklets, lanes and streets by the talented landscape team at TCL.

Designed from the inside out, every decision focuses on the end occupier, high ceilings, juliette balconies, solar shading and high thermal performance. The interior design approach is about reducing embodied carbon with a ‘build less, give more’ approach. With no suspended ceilings, services are exposed and carefully curated in natural, uncoated materials such as raw copper and galvanised steel.

Nightingale Preston is located on the southeast corner of the site. A busy road to the south, an elevated train line to the east. The building holds a tough corner, acts as an urban marker and shield to the pedestrianised laneways and streets within the broader precinct.

Built to last.

Designed to last well into the next century, the facade is made of only three materials. Fluted precast concrete, anodised aluminium and galvanised steel. The fluted concrete acts as a heat sink and a self -shading façade (over 50% of the facades to the north and west are self shaded. The increased surface area releases more heat at peak temperature ranges, providing a more stable surface temperature across 24 hour periods.)

The ground plane introduces a fourth material, pressed clay, carbon neutral bricks, locally manufactured 25 km from site.

Interiors are simple, robust, and meaningful. Every material and finish was selected with purpose, with a focus on wellness; wellness for the occupant and wellness for the planet. This project is not about a lush material palette. It’s about building less to give more, about a sharing economy and a sharing community.

Carbon reduction is the focus.

The building features a highly efficient envelope with window-to-wall ratios under 40%. Shaded northern windows in summer help achieve an average 8.2-star NatHERS rating. Over 100 kW of rooftop solar and 100% certified GreenPower ensure operational carbon neutrality.

Small footprint housing and reductionist architecture, using recycled and carbon-neutral products like natural cork flooring, carbon-neutral brick paving, and carbon-neutral tapware, drastically reduce per-resident carbon emissions.

No basement, no ensuites, no individual laundries, no personal air conditioning, no ceilings and no conditioned circulation spaces. Instead, we offer a high-amenity bicycle and mobility hub, shared rooftop bathhouse, communal rooftop laundry and clotheslines with stunning views and a shared co-working, community/climate refuge room with high-efficiency air conditioning. A centralised high-efficiency heat pump provides hydronic heating to every apartment. The design features exposed 2.9m concrete soffits with excellent thermal mass storage capacity. Open-air stairs and lift lobbies provide great views and aspects.

Right size housing for a climate crisis. Right size housing for a housing crisis.

Small footprint, Teilhaus terrace housing ranging in size from 27m2 – 32m2, on the ground floor of Nightingale Preston. These row houses are a familiar typology — they have a front fence, a front gate, veranda to the street, a fold in their fences form a stoop to sit and perch and chat to passing neighbours. These rows of terraces offer a density of doors on the street, bringing activity, vitality and safety. Importantly, each of these houses are only a fraction of the size of a one-bedroom dwelling, a fraction of the carbon and a fraction of the cost. The Teilhaus apartments were sold via a priority ballot for $280k each to means tested first home buyers. These homes formed a narrow bridge from a lifetime of renting into a future of housing security. This is the good stuff. This is when necessity drives innovation, drives a future different from the past.

Greening is the rule not the exception.

Preston sits on a bed of green. The edges of the site are planted out, with biodiverse, deep root, lush planting. The building itself, its masonry base acts as an armature for climbers and vines to grow up the building, occupying it, enveloping it over time. Every balcony is planted out with an irrigated planter, pushing plants and vines out over the edges of every apartment up the entire building, adding pops of green, clusters of biodiversity and habitat dotted throughout.

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency: 55 apartments. 5 apartment types. Everything stacks, structure, services; enclosed envelope.

Nightingale Preston confidently holds the corner of the Oakover village and acts as a signal box straddling the boundary between the industrial rail corridor and the residential community of Oakover village, delivering a new residential village to the north of Thornbury Station, part of Darebin’s commitment to renewal and vibrant communities.

The building is designed in three parts to acknowledge three Preston histories.

On the ground floor, the residential history is embodied in Teilhaus terrace housing. The design fosters an active, safe environment, promoting a sense of community.

Levels 1-5 represent industrial history. Stacking floor plates reminiscent of factory production lines, the use of fluted concrete, raw metalwork, exposed ducting, and other industrial materials highlights efficiency, robustness and functionality.

The rooftop returns to precolonial history and nature, featuring a 400m² area dedicated to community facilities, including a laundry, dining room, and bathhouse, surrounded by 200m² of native landscape. The sawtooth rooftop form references the nearby tram depot sheds, tying the design to the site’s local history. The co-working community dining room is a space designed not only for everyday community interaction, but also for a climate shock. Doubling as a climate refuge in a heatwave event, the space is insulated and air-conditioned to protect vulnerable members of the community in future heat events.
There is a humble democracy to the rooftop. There are no penthouses on the top level, just the shared spaces, the communal spaces, the working spaces and two expansive native gardens.
With access to northern sun all year round and uninterrupted views to the city from the south, it’s the “backyard” dreams are made of.