Sarah Buckeridge is a Principal and Co-managing Director at Hayball, a national architectural practice with a strong focus on culture, community and learning. Underpinned by research, Hayball’s user-centred design approach seeks better sustainable outcomes for people and the planet and its inclusive design processes enable multiple voices to contribute to the vision for new places and spaces.
Decades of research show that a well-designed community can enhance people’s quality of life. But historically, we have seen many developments built without people’s wellbeing in mind, resulting in places that are low quality and poorly designed.
For generations, the Australian Dream has been to own your own property. But according to recent data, Australia’s housing shortfall is expected to be at least 175,000 homes by 2027. There is an urgent need for more homes to fill this gap, but, as with any major investments and projects facing time pressures, there is a significant risk that new developments will offer physical houses without delivering successful communities.
There needs to be holistic measurement and assessment of project success—not only the numbers of dwellings delivered, but the social value that is created through social, environmental and economic benefits. Social value can be created at every stage of the development; from designing for net carbon zero, embedding access to green space to creating more inclusive and affordable housing.
Two recent Hayball projects embody this approach to building social value through design: the mixed-tenure multi-residential Preston Crossing, delivered for MAB, and the 199-apartment project at 15 Thompson Street for Assemble.
Defined by progressive design, community and sustainability, the mixed-tenure ‘Preston Crossing’ offers a range of family-oriented apartments, townhouses and Nightingale housing, regenerating 1.4ha of land in a central pocket of Preston. We were engaged by MAB to lead the masterplan for the two precincts that make up Preston Crossing, as well as the design of 99 new homes built for social housing residents and additional market apartments and townhouses.
The entire project was envisioned with a distinct focus on wellbeing. It’s a design that not only provides diverse housing opportunities to alleviate housing pressures, but creates a high-quality public realm that can support residents to thrive and connect with the broader community.
The social housing meets Gold Liveable Housing Design Guidelines, has received an average 7-star NatHERS rating, and will achieve a 5 Star Green Star Design and As-built Certification—meaning apartments are more comfortable and cost efficient to run. These design standards help to support people of all abilities and stages of life and represent Australian excellence in healthier and more responsive buildings.
The building itself features a generous community room and kitchen facilities, connected to an elevated terrace with expansive views and creating a shared space for all residents. Within the broader precinct, a gallery space and new park serve to create amenity not only for residents, but a welcoming address for the precinct, inviting the neighbouring community into the space.
A network of streets and lanes prioritise pedestrians and cyclists, further connecting residents to their neighbours, as well as to the recently upgraded nearby cycling network and Bell Station, providing significant transit choice.
These laneways play a dual role in our design by creating a space that is welcoming and accessible while encouraging the local community to come together, supporting children’s play and neighbourly interactions—an idea that’s being explored further at our practice through collaboration with Natalia Krysiak, who has conducted research into the importance of play in early childhood development as part of her ‘Cities for Play’ project.
Delivered alongside Breathe Architecture, Archier and TCL, and in partnership with Homes Victoria and HousingFirst, the highly collaborative approach to precinct design has created a new precedent for sustainable and affordable residential community-design, supporting the ongoing re-establishment of this central and well serviced neighbourhood and community.
Designed for Assemble in Kensington, Melbourne, 15 Thompson Street welcomed its first residents into a building created to prioritise community—envisioned once more with quality, sustainability and social value hand in hand.
We set out to meet the needs of the local neighbourhood through the provision of affordable, comfortable, low running cost and low environmental impact housing in a modern, community-centric precinct. Design choices at every level were informed by this goal, from creating spaces for connection and engagement between public and private spaces, to using sustainable, durable materials to ensure longevity—to the very location of the project itself and its connectivity to sustainable transport choices, with the Capital City Trail and significant public transport choice nearby.
The built form appears as ‘community clusters’ delivered across two conjoined buildings to accommodate this idea of interconnected living program. Several shared spaces across the building support the growth of neighbourly connections and extend residents’ lifestyles beyond their own apartment, drawing inspiration from highly urban yet community-centric areas like The Bronx in New York City. A generous rooftop is envisioned as an open, practical social space, while cooking and dining facilities, a basketball court, sandpits, a chicken coop and herb gardens encourage leisure and connection for all ages.
Forming part of design efforts to connect residents to their new neighbourhood, an internal park at the building’s core activates the ground plane and creates a pathway from Stubbs Street to Thompson Street. Future office and hospitality tenancies, alongside a publicly bookable community room—imagined as a modern take on the traditional scout hall—invite the existing community into the building and help to create an active, welcoming precinct.
Other design choices seemingly made at an aesthetic level have a very functional purpose in working towards the project’s goals of sustainability. Open-air walkways support apartments to be more energy efficient, keeping them cool in the summer; and natural light and cross flow ventilation keep apartment life happy and healthy. Landscaping is highly considered, with a mix of plants and trees chosen specifically for their air-purifying quality, both creating a cleaner and healthier environment and encouraging the restoration of local biodiversity.
At a technical level, the building is 100 per cent electric—an early adopter of the now highly prevalent trend as part of Australia’s broader energy transition. No fossil fuels are used for heating, cooling, cooking or power; instead, the building is solely connected to Melbourne’s electrical grid. Additional solar panels on the roof power shared spaces with renewable energy.
15 Thompson Street sets a new benchmark for quality, community focused accommodation, bringing together commercial and community uses with residential life in an affordable, sustainable addition to the current apartment offerings in Melbourne.
Our built environment is particularly well-placed to respond to an array of pressing global issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, but also societal challenges. By placing wellbeing at the heart of our work, these developments are inherently more livable, socially cohesive and desirable places to live.
Ultimately, the decisions made by clients and design teams to shape the urban fabric will impact thousands of people’s quality of life across the country. It is our responsibility as designers to create new housing developments like Preston Crossing and 15 Thompson Street that inspire social connection and create a sense of wellbeing.
Without doing so, we run the risk of creating increased social isolation, further disruption of the climate and a lack of community resilience. Embedding social value considerations in the creation of new housing is a powerful vehicle to help achieve better outcomes for both people and the planet.
