Nightingale Housing is a not-for-profit organisation that provides apartments that are socially, financially and environmentally sustainable. We believe that homes should be built for people, not profit.

Our Beginning

Before we started Nightingale Housing, we looked across Melbourne, and we saw that housing was unaffordable, badly designed, and poorly built. We knew it could be better and with the help of Small Giants, we embarked on The Commons, which won the national award for housing and the national award for sustainability.

And people started writing to us saying, if you're going to do another building like The Commons, can you please let us know? Nightingale Housing was born.

“Nightingale won that award because people seemed genuinely happy to be living there.”

— Jeremy McLeod, Founder

The site across the street from The Commons was to become the first Nightingale project. We started work on Nightingale 1 in 2014, and we completed that in 2017. In 2018 Nightingale 1 won the national award for housing and the national award for sustainability, and was the first residential building to win the Melbourne Prize. The reason that Nightingale won that award wasn't because of the architecture, but because when the jury went through, the people seemed genuinely happy to be living there.

The Nightingale Approach

Nightingale Housing delivers apartments which are:

Sustainable: Energy efficient (building average of at least 7.5 NatHERS stars), carbon neutral in operations and built near public transport, with rooftop solar and water harvesting for productive gardens.

Community: Nightingale apartments are sold to residents and Community Housing Providers, not investors. Shared amenities like laundries and rooftop gardens provide opportunities to build community.

At-cost: Nightingale Housing provides housing at-cost, so we are motivated to create homes for people, not profit. New residents sign a caveat agreeing to pass on this saving to future owners.

Lower living costs: Because Nightingale buildings are built for people, not profit, we can invest time and effort in reducing the long-term cost of ownership. Things like rooftop solar, embedded energy networks, avoiding gas supply, and a shared super-fast commercial internet connection mean lower ongoing costs.

Nightingale Housing exists to revolutionise the way we live together.

We all want to live in a comfortable home we can afford. We all want to belong to a community. We all want to reduce our impact on the planet. Quality apartments built close to public transport can deliver all this in a way that is difficult to achieve under other housing models.

What we do

We find sites, rally impact investors, appoint an architect, engage with future Nightingale residents to ballot apartments, and manage the process of bringing a Nightingale building to life.

We cut out everything that doesn’t help to deliver real homes. Marketing. Display suites. Profit. Build less, give more.

We include things that make homes robust and liveable, long term. Proper glazing. Proper insulation. Certified Green Power.

We keep costs low by working with values aligned sponsors, like Fisher & Paykel, Brickworks and Taubmans.

We work hard to find the best way to build homes, and then do it better.

We learn from every project. We evolve.

How can I find out more?

You can find out about upcoming projects and available apartments in existing buildings by registering as a future Nightingale resident. Let us know what type of home you want, where you want to live and what your budget is and we’ll be in touch when we’re doing something in your neighbourhood.

Register here →