Nightingale Village is the largest Nightingale Housing project within the Anstey Village in Brunswick, Melbourne. It comprises a precinct of six neighbouring buildings, each designed by a different award-winning architect using the social, environmental, and financial sustainability principles of the Nightingale model.

Hansen Partnership’s urban planning team held a number of roles throughout the project. The initial feasibility looked into the viability of the original planning permit, the obligations and expectations coming from the relevant planning framework and the various options to develop a future housing precinct within the Anstey Village using a collective of Melbourne’s best architects.

Following feasibility, we prepared a consolidated planning application, Nightingale Village itself presenting innumerous challenges with design, form, materiality, spatial separation, activation, public realm treatment, transport against some of the expectations of Moreland City Council.

Resolution of the architectural ambition against elements of the Moreland Planning Scheme required careful curation and stakeholder management. The project benefited from an iterative process and a highly engaged team and Council group.  There were difficult moments, many concessions, and strategic gains along the way.  Late in the project, one of the properties was acquired by Council in order to develop a new park under the Park Close to Home programme.

Given the many challenges and unique attributes of this project, we are immensely proud to have secured town planning approval for circa 200 socially and environmentally sustainable apartments.  The project is smart, deliberative and aims to provide liveability density.