The team from Kennedy Nolan

With Nightingale Umarkoo Wayi, Kennedy Nolan’s second Nightingale project, nearing completion, we spoke with architects Patrick Kennedy, Victoria Reeves and Wyndham Cameron about the vision for our first Coburg project, and how it balances context, community, and Kennedy Nolan’s distinctive design approach.

Nightingale and Kennedy Nolan have worked together for a long time now. What is it that draws you to these kinds of projects, and how would you describe the relationship?

Apartment living is so vital to the future of our city for reasons of sustainability and because of the sheer necessity to accommodate a growing population efficiently and affordably.  Architects are intrinsically interested in shaping their environment - at all scales.  Looking around us here in Melbourne, like many others, we were troubled by the apartments on offer. Nightingale offered an exciting alternative – a community of architects and like-minded thinkers focused on community, quality, domesticity, sustainability, and inclusivity.  We got involved because of shared values and aspirations and stayed for the opportunity to make real change – and because of the pleasure of working with good people intent on doing good.

Kennedy Nolan is known for creating buildings with a strong sense of place. In what ways did the Coburg context shape the design?

We observed a couple of things about the Coburg site, which formed a strong conceptual basis for Umarkoo Wayi.  Sydney Road, as the name suggests, was the original road to Sydney from Melbourne.  It has gone through many phases, but we were interested in this significant original purpose and the way that resulted in some grand and ornate facades commensurate with its importance as a connection between Australia’s two biggest cities.  Consequently, we emphasised the three-storey presence on Sydney Road with a highly-modelled and decorative red-brick façade and a grandly scaled awning.  Sydney Road is also a very, very long commercial strip, and so we were interested in placing Umarkoo Wayi as a grand and handsome marker on this stretch.  Another aspect of the site that interested us is that from Sydney Road it immediately transitions to low-rise, suburban residential neighbourhoods.  We were interested to reflect this transition both through the dramatic wedge-shaped form of the building, but also by transitioning from a large building to a residential scale through modulated detailing and intimacy to the rear of the site.

Together with Nightingale, you worked in close consultation with Wurundjeri Elders to name the project Umarkoo Wayi, meaning “all of us.” How did this naming and process of consultation inform the design?

We are so grateful to the Wurundjeri Elders for the name of this building because it encapsulates a core principle of Nightingale, which is community.  We have derived deep satisfaction from so many aspects of the Nightingale model, but the deepest satisfaction comes through the diverse, supportive and highly functional communities that develop in the buildings – Umarkoo Wayi is such a beautiful encapsulation of community and its place.

What was the central idea or vision that guided your design for Umarkoo Wayi?

Context is obviously very important as discussed above, but each building we design is also predicated on its use and its users. Nightingale is predicated on doing more with less – but these are buildings where people live and settings for supportive communities. We don’t see doing more with less as limiting, we see it as a rich driver of design.  Our practice is interested in how the human qualities of great domestic space can improve the experience of any building, and we will often do this through careful deployment of colour and texture.  Using the limited palette of materials necessary to make our Nightingale buildings sustainable, durable and more affordable, we make sure that our design is energised by colour, by texture, rendered in crisp, simple and playful forms and accompanied by Amanda Oliver’s lush, textural gardens.  It is the synthesis of all these elements that imbue the buildings with a personality and enables its inhabitants to make a connection to it.

Enduring materials are a hallmark of Nightingale projects. How did you approach material selection here?

To be efficient, durable and more affordable, apartment construction draws on standard building materials, but Nightingale has always been distinguished by both stripping back to reveal inherent qualities of a material (as in the exposed concrete ceilings), as well as the addition of warmth and tactility through strategically placed recycled timbers and face brickwork.  We adopted this tried and tested approach, adapting it to our own imperative to intense colour palettes which also incorporate cork and impactful expanses of terrazzo.  Generally, the approach is to avoid extraneous layers, coatings, and superfluous elements, and when done sensitively, this results in buildings which feel substantial, authentic, and tactile.

How does the design foster connection among residents while also allowing people space for privacy?

There is no need for us to re-invent the wheel to foster connection in a Nightingale building – the model is well-established and proven successful.  Where possible circulation is external, use of stairs is encouraged by making them pleasant and visible, and landings are generous, considered, with fresh air, views, and natural light.  There are communal facilities on the roof – practical uses like a laundry and a vegetable garden, and places to gather or be alone, to sit, eat, or entertain in a garden setting.  These spaces aren’t clip-ons – they are privileged and intrinsic to the design.  High-functioning communities always allow places for retreat and privacy.  The apartments have deep balconies, which are both very useful but also engender a feeling of being sequestered, and the interiors are soft and nurturing – avoiding starkness, hardness and highly reflective or overly bright surfaces – an authentic sense of retreat.

Environmental sustainability is a value both Nightingale and Kennedy Nolan share. What strategies have been woven into Umarkoo Wayi to support this?

Umarkoo Wayi meets the key Nightingale requirement to do more with less.  Most significantly, however, is that it’s an example of innovation in sustainability which Nightingale led, but which is increasingly accepted practice in this sector.  It includes low embodied energy in construction, low energy in operation (8 stars NatHERS), passive-solar function, all-electric building, high efficiency mechanical systems, elimination of private vehicles, communal facilities, water-sensitive hydraulic design, and on-site power generation.  And in everyday use, there are elements which make you think about energy use and which actively reduce it, such as awnings, solar blinds, and external circulation with natural light and fresh air, and a stair which is an attractive alternative to the lift. Small things that support a sustainable mindset and a different way of thinking about how we live gently on the planet.

Perhaps most significantly, it is offerings such as Umarkoo Wayi - of quality housing at density and the supply chains we feel they influence, that yield the positive environmental impact at a city scale.  These projects increase opportunities for people to live close to schools and employment, to public transport and infrastructure- homes that are connected to a broader community.

What has been the most rewarding or surprising part of the design process so far?

We have been delighted by the spirit of co-operation and enthusiasm the project has engendered – from Nightingale Housing, the future residents, our consultants, the builders, and most recently the tenants who will enliven the ground plane on Sydney Road.

When residents first move in, what do you hope they’ll feel?

We hope they feel like they are home – that they are in a place with people motivated to form community, that they have spaces which are both characterful but also adaptable to diverse tastes and personalities.  We hope they feel comfortable, sheltered, supported, and secure.

If you could highlight just one design feature, which would you choose as your favourite?

We are really pleased that Umarkoo Wayi is a bold new presence on Sydney Road – that it draws on its history as an important thoroughfare with its handsome corbelled brick facade, but also points toward a future of density done well – functional communities with services and the benefits of city-living all around.  

You’ve been working closely with Amanda Oliver Gardens on the landscape. What key principles guided the landscape design?

Amanda’s approach to landscape design is based on a deep understanding of both plants and gardening, and so her gardens are designed to thrive but also to allow residents to get involved in nurturing them or just enjoying them.  What we don’t have to worry about is that Amanda is also an artist – the gardens are reliably lush, textural, tonally complex, and responsive to seasons and the passages of time – they are not static, they are the start of something which just keeps on giving.

Finally, what kind of legacy do you hope Umarkoo Wayi will leave for the Coburg community?

Coburg is a vast suburb, and Sydney Road is an epic commercial strip.  We hope that Umarkoo Wayi will energise this particular part and that an urban ecology will build around the wonderful people who will make this community in what we hope will be a sentinel building.  We wish for an alchemy of people and place to gather activity and amenity.

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One two-bedroom home is available at Nightingale Umarkoo Wayi. Enquire here.