In 2007, successful architect Jeremy McLeod came up with a bold question. Could housing in Australia (and potentially, beyond) be more than just a commodity? Could apartment buildings be affordable, environmentally sustainable and genuinely liveable?

This led Jeremy to develop a prototype apartment building in Brunswick called The Commons, and later, to Nightingale Housing. It’s a pretty Utopian idea: that multi-residential housing can and should be cheaper, and better, that putting people first and cutting out a few middlemen along the way, really can create homes that are socially, financially and environmentally sustainable.

Links + Further Reading

This is the latest episode in our second season of podcasts! Check out season one here.

To keep up with Jeremy McLeod’s award-winning architectural practice, and his incredible team, you can follow Breathe Architecture on Instagram.

You can also follow Nightingale Housing and all of their various projects and developments around Melbourne on Instagram.

Find out more about the first project, employing aspects of Jeremy’s visionary model, The Commons here.

We featured an in-depth story on Nightingale 1, the first apartment building created under the Nightingale Model, which residents moved into earlier his year.

Nightingale 1 houses Home.one, a hole-in-the-wall, non-profit social enterprise cafe co-founded by Dan Poole.

Jeremy is one to share the praise around; he highlights Breathe Architecture’s Director (and Nightingale 1 resident) Bonnie Herring as being pivotal to Nightingale’s success.

Complement this podcast with this recording of Jeremy’s super inspiring TEDx talk in 2015!

There are still a few tickets available for our final live event with comedian and mid-century design advocate Tim Ross on July 31st. Find out more here.

Mercedes me is a collaborative space in Melbourne’s CBD, where café culture meets Mercedes-Benz lifestyle. Stay up to date with their varied program of events by following @mercedesmestore.melbourne.