Podcasts about nightingale housing

That's the world architect Jeremy McLeod is fighting for, and he joins us today to share the how and the why behind this dream. Jeremy is the co founder of both Breathe Architecture and Nightingale Housing, where he works to bring sustainability, community, and innovation to the forefront of the building industry. A big focus in our conversation was the Nightingale Model. Jeremy explained that Nightingale isn't just a building; it's a housing model. At its core, it follows a triple-bottom-line approach, encompassing sustainability, community, and financial feasibility. This involves:- Achieving sustainability through all-electric, 100% renewable energy usage.- Fostering community by sharing resources like laundries and rooftop spaces.- Ensuring financial sustainability by structuring projects around impact investments and selling units without profit margins.Jeremy stated that by removing the profit motive and focusing on community needs and sustainability, Nightingale creates affordable, quality housing. This is evidenced by their growing waiting lists, demonstrating a strong demand for such innovative models.We also discussed the critical role developers play in expanding sustainable housing. Jeremy believes that developers can and should evolve by adopting sustainable practices proven by models like Nightingale. He acknowledged that while profit is not the primary focus for Nightingale, larger developers can still profit through improved environmental standards.Despite the obstacles, Jeremy remains optimistic about change. One of the main takeaways here is that transparency and certainty in planning are vital. Cities can learn from international examples where clear height and density regulations provide more predictable outcomes for developers and communities, which leads to better practices and more innovation! Jeremy is doing some incredible work, and we hope our conversation with him will encourage more people to go out and fight for a better future in building!LINKS:Connect with us on Instagram: @themindfulbuilderpodConnect with Hamish:Instagram: @sanctumhomesWebsite: www.yoursanctum.com.au/Connect with Matt: Instagram: @carlandconstructionsWebsite: www.carlandconstructions.com/

In this episode, Daniel Moore is speaking with the registered architect and Founder of Breathe Architecture and Nightingale Housing, Jeremy McLeod. Australia and many other countries around the world have housing affordability crises that need to be addressed. Architects can make a meaningful impact in this space when they create housing that is socially, financially and environmentally sustainable. In this episode, we discuss how Jeremy and the Nightingale team believe that homes should be built for people, not solely for profit and also the organisations Nightingale has started working with to try and narrow the gap between affordable sustainable housing for more people in Australia. This has been Hearing Architecture proudly sponsored by Brickworks. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much to our guest, registered architect and Founder of Breathe Architect and Nightingale Housing, Jeremy McLeod. It's great to hear about all the initiatives your undertaking to make sustainable housing more affordable and we can't wait to see what Breathe and Nightingale do in the future. We look forward to having you on the podcast again. Our sponsor Brickworks also produces architecture podcasts hosted by Tim Ross. You can find ‘The Art of Living', ‘Architects Abroad, and ‘The Power of Two', at brickworks.com.au or your favourite podcast platform. If you'd like to show your support please rate, review, and subscribe to Hearing Architecture in your favourite podcast app. If you want to know more about what the Australian Institute of Architects is doing to support architects and the community please visit architecture.com.au This is a production by the Australian Institute of Architects Emerging Architects and Graduates Network, in collaboration with Open Creative Studio. The Institute production team was Madelynn Jenkins, and Claudia McCarthy, and the EmAGN production team was Nicole Eadie and Daniel Moore. This content is brought to you by the Australian Institute of Architects Emerging Architects and Graduates Network, in collaboration with Open Creative Studio. This content does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. This content does not constitute legal, financial, insurance, or other types of advice. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in circumstances where loss or damage may result. The Institute endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published, but does not accept responsibility for content that may or will become inaccurate over time.

As Australia's housing crisis deepens, higher-density living will be a crucial part of any effective solution. Building upwards rather than outwards can be more economically and socially beneficial: it makes use of existing services and infrastructure, and helps people live closer to jobs, schools and loved ones. From the people behind Nightingale Housing, learn more about the merits and pitfalls of increasing density in urban areas, often characterised as the ‘Yes-In-My-Backyard' (YIMBY) or ‘Not-In-My-Backyard' (NIMBY) movements. Through the lenses of planning, design and community care, this discussion asks: how do we respect memories of place while also responding to the need for centrally-located, high-density housing?

In this episode, Daniel Moore interviews Jeremy McLeod a registered architect, founding director of sustainable architecture firm Breathe Architecture and founder of alternative not-for-profit development company Nightingale Housing. Jeremy shares some of the main initiatives that he uses in Breathe and Nightingale projects to have the most impact on climate change. Have your notebooks ready, because Jeremy is giving away a lot of his tricks. Let's jump in! Hearing Architecture is proudly sponsored by Brickworks. Thank you so much for listening and thank you so much to our guest registered architect, founding director of sustainable architecture firm Breathe Architecture and founder of alternative not-for-profit development company Nightingale Housing, Jeremy McLeod. Thank you so much for sharing so much information about what can be done to make our buildings more sustainable including electrification, electrification, electrification. We look forward to speaking with you again in the future. Our sponsor Brickworks also produces architecture podcasts hosted by Tim Ross. You can find ‘The Art of Living', ‘Architects Abroad, and ‘The Power of Two', at brickworks.com.au or your favourite podcast platform. If you'd like to show your support please rate, review, and subscribe to Hearing Architecture in your favourite podcast app. If you want to know more about what the Australian Institute of Architects is doing to support architects and the community please visit architecture.com.au This is a production by the Australian Institute of Architects Emerging Architects and Graduates Network, in collaboration with Open Creative Studio. The Institute production team was Madelynn Jenkins, and Claudia McCarthy, and the EmAGN production team was Sam Bowstead and Daniel Moore. This content is brought to you by the Australian Institute of Architects Emerging Architects and Graduates Network, in collaboration with Open Creative Studio. This content does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. This content does not constitute legal, financial, insurance, or other types of advice. You should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in circumstances where loss or damage may result. The Institute endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published but does not accept responsibility for content that may or will become inaccurate over time.

This week, I had a fantastic chat with Jeremy McLeod, a familiar name in Melbourne's architecture scene. He's the brains behind Breathe Architecture, known for their awesome sustainable designs in various projects, especially affordable urban housing in Melbourne.  Jeremy is also the Founder of Nightingale Housing, the specialist nonprofit property development company, specialising in affordable housing.During our chat, Jeremy spilled the beans on how he ended up in architecture, almost becoming a Structural Engineer – you'll have a good laugh when you hear that story! Sustainability was a big theme, covering everything from construction to design.  We dug into Nightingale's journey over the past decade, starting with their first project, 'The Commons' in Brunswick. And we geeked out over the eco-friendly stuff they're doing.So, if you're curious about what makes Jeremy tick, his work with Breathe Architecture, and his passion projects like Nightingale Housing, give this episode a listen. It's a laid-back chat you'll enjoy!In our discussion, we also dug into these topics:Embracing Sustainability in Architecture The Evolution of Sustainable Architecture in MelbourneThe Impact of Sustainable Building Initiatives in AustraliaThe Challenges of Encouraging Sustainability in Australia's Building IndustryThe Green Building Council of Australia's Role in Promoting Sustainable Home Building for Volume BuildersOpportunities for Volume Builders in Australia to Embrace Sustainable and Compact Home BuildingBuilding Sustainable and Human-Centric Homes: Quality Over SizeCutting Carbon in the Built Environment: A Simple and Effective Guide    The Future of Sustainable Building: From Mandates to Market DemandBridging Sustainability, Community, and Profit: The Nightingale ModelHousing for All: A Vision for Sustainable and Affordable Homes in Australia2050: Achieving Sustainable and Equitable Housing for AllHope you enjoy the podcast!If you're into Aussie architecture and sustainability's your thing, this episode's a gem. We'll chat about everything from cool construction to creative design. Plus, we're diving into Nightingale Housing's eco-revolution. So, if you're all about sustainable living and keen on Jeremy's journey, then have a listen!The Building Talks Podcast is brought to you by Building Environs Recruitment - providing recruitment solutions to the property, construction, and related industries, here in Melbourne and South East Queensland.  For an overview of our service, visit:www.buildingenvirons.com.au Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and subscribe to The Building Talks podcast so you don't miss any updates.Contact The Building Talks Podcast Follow us on Linkedin, Facebook, and Instagram Visit us on our website Email us at info@buildingenvirons.com.au

We kick off our new mini-series on sustainability with this episode featuring Jeremy McLeod, founder of Breathe Architecture and one of the driving forces behind Nightingale Housing! He joins Lucy to speak about Australia's housing crisis and how sustainability and affordability can coexist, with the help of thoughtful design.Hear his expert tips for getting into the property market, the importance of designing houses for people instead of profit, and so much more.Take a look at one the amazing Nightingale apartments here, and in our recap of this episode here. Follow us at @thedesignfiles and subscribe to our weekly newsletter so you don't miss a thing. Thank you so much for listening!

Buying your first home is a significant milestone, and it's only fitting to approach it with the right mindset. While most people tend to approach it with an investor's mindset, there are other aspects that are just as important to consider, such as peace of mind, security, and environmental impact. In this episode, we challenge the traditional investor's perspective and explore a more holistic approach to home buying. Our special guest, Jeremy McLeod, the founder of Breathe Architecture and co-founder of Nightingale Housing shares expert tips on how to find a home that not only provides financial security but also promotes your well-being and supports the environment. From sustainable architecture and permaculture to green spaces and self-sufficiency, we'll discuss the essential features to consider when looking for your first family home, so tune in now. Episode Highlights: 00:00 - Our topic for today's episode 02:49 - Meighan's unique house of the week 03:21 - Who is Jeremy McLeod? 06:27 - What is Nightingale Housing? 09:41 - What is the biggest issue of today? 14:57 - The potential cost savings for switching to green power 16:35 - Tips for first homebuyers on budget-friendly sustainability  21:54 - The downside of removing trees in subdivisions 27:46 - The pros and cons of having green roofs and greenery in your property 34:09 - The cause behind the urban heat island effect and how to deal with it 42:11 - How can permaculture be integrated into suburban living? 50:00 - Can permaculture be commercialised in some way? 52:32 - The importance of making scalable decisions when buying your first property About Jeremy McLeod: Jeremy McLeod is the Director of Breathe, a top sustainable architectural studio in Australia with over 20 AIA awards. He's also a Co-Founder of Nightingale Housing and Head of Partnerships at Goodbye Gas. Jeremy advocates for affordable and carbon-neutral housing, urging industry and government to do better in response to the country's housing and climate crisis. He's passionate about a net zero emissions future and believes architects can drive positive change through collaboration. Connect with Jeremy McLeod: Connect with Jeremy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-mcleod-architect Visit Jeremy's website: https://www.breathe.com.au/studio Resources: Visit this website to find more suppliers providing 100% greenpower https://www.greenpeace.org.au/ Visit this website for sustainable options https://www.marketforces.org.au/ Visit our website https://www.homebuyeracademy.com.au/ Learn how to buy property without making a mistake with our 10-step online course for first time home buyers https://homebuyeracademy.com.au/YFHBG If you have any questions or would like to be featured on our show, contact us at: Your First Home Buyer Guide Podcast - support@homebuyeracademy.com.au Looking for a Sydney Buyers Agent? https://www.gooddeeds.com.au Work with Veronica: https://www.veronicamorgan.com.au Looking for a Brisbane Buyers Agent? https://www.propertypursuit.com.au/ Work with Meighan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meighanwells/ If you enjoyed today's podcast, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share the show! There's more to come, so we hope to have you along with us on this journey! Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@YourFirstHomeBuyerGuidePodcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ph/podcast/your-first-home-buyer-guide-podcast/id1544701825 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7GyrfXoqvDxjqNRv40NVQs?si=7c8bc4362fab421f See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How can we ensure the perspectives of women and gender-diverse people are factored into residential building design? Equity in gender representation is essential at all stages of the process, from the earliest architectural plans, to decorating, to engaging with communities in need of affordable housing. Tune in to hear about the important subtleties of creating spaces that improve the lives of women and girls. The panel discussion featured people working in community housing, policy and architecture, and will be moderated by a representative from Nightingale Housing.

Housing is a fundamental aspect of our lives, fulfilling the basic human need for shelter. Despite this, many individuals and families still struggle to find affordable and adequate housing. In this episode, Jeremy McLeod, founder of Breathe Architecture and co-founder of Nightingale Housing joins us as he brings his wealth of knowledge in the real estate industry and his unique approach to prioritising affordability and sustainability all whilst reducing risks for new apartment buyers. Together, we delve into the Nightingale Housing project, a revolutionary zero-carbon community that combines affordability, sustainability, and community building. This project serves as a testament to the fact that sustainable living can be achieved without breaking the bank. Jeremy and his team hope to inspire others to adopt a similar approach through their successful implementation of this project. So tune in now to learn more about this innovative community and how it proves that affordability and sustainability can coexist and thrive together. Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation about the future of housing and sustainable living. Episode Highlights: 00:00 - Introduction 01:17 - Who is Jeremy Mcleod? 03:02 - Jeremy's passion for sustainability led to the creation of Breathe and Nightingale Housing 07:46 - The beginnings of the Nightingale project — Nightingale Apartments 09:59 - Jeremy challenging the urban sprawl with sustainable solutions 12:20 - The benefits of fostering connected communities 15:42 - Reducing apartment prices by building zero-car, zero-carbon neighbourhoods 20:27 - Sustainability vs affordability: Examining the factors behind Nightingale's sales 25:13 - How Nightingale grew its market by building trust with potential buyers 28:57 - Why Nightingale still keeps selling 32:05 - The goal of Nightingale Housing 33:56 - Looking to make better, and more informed property decisions? 35:03 - Addressing the elephant in the room by delivering innovative solutions 45:56 - How Jeremy plans to protect affordable housing for the long-term 48:01 - Is living in a Nightingale ideal for everyone with differing political ideologies? 49:57 - Why Nightingale Housing is unavailable in Sydney 52:55 - What's Jeremy's property Dumbo? About Jeremy McLeod: Jeremy McLeod is the Director of Breathe, a top sustainable architectural studio in Australia with over 20 AIA awards. He's also a Co-Founder of Nightingale Housing and Head of Partnerships at Goodbye Gas. Jeremy advocates for affordable and carbon-neutral housing, urging industry and government to do better in response to the country's housing and climate crisis. He's passionate about a net zero emissions future and believes architects can drive positive change through collaboration. Connect with Jeremy McLeod: LinkedIn Breathe Studio Resources: Visit our website https://www.theelephantintheroom.com.au How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates https://amzn.to/3JZ1LLB If you enjoyed today's podcast, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share the show! There's more to come, so we hope to have you along with us on this journey!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Housing prices in the US are completely out of balance. Affordable housing is difficult to attain in entire metropolitan areas. There are few options for middle class households, and even fewer for working class residents.We need a reset on the American dream.From one that is sprawling, unaffordable, lonely, carbon intensive, and exclusive – to one that is community-oriented, multigenerational, family-friendly and sustainable. One that is inclusive and accessible. Perhaps most importantly, one that is climate-adaptive and resilient to events exacerbated by climate change: energy spikes, heat domes, cold snaps, and extended wildfire smoke events. In this week's episode, we'll be talking about one solution that could provide a path towards boosting middle class housing opportunities: Baugruppen.Further reading...Catch  Mike Eliason's 2014 series on Baugruppen over on the Urbanist. Larch Lab's page on Baugruppen, with several links and examples. ‘Baugruppen Communal Dwelling Sans Granola,' Michael Eliason's Ignite Seattle #33 video.‘Don't Call It A Commune: Inside Berlin's Radical Cohousing Project,' Metropolis.‘Baugruppen: It's a Cooperative Living Concept, and It's Perfect for Boomers,' Treehugger.Nightingale Housing, Austrialian non-profit developing socially, financially and environmentally sustainable housing similar to Baugruppen.‘I Want to Live in a Baugruppe,' Dave Roberts summary of Baugruppen, for Grist.  Lastly, to stay up to date with what Michael Eliason is doing at Larch Lab, be sure to sign up for newsletter updates.     

Monique Woodward is a founding director of WoodWoodWard (WOWOWA) Architecture. WOWOWA is a studio with a uniquely Australian approach to architecture, established in collaboration with Scott Woodward in 2010. In describing its architectural practice, WOWOWA says that its studio is all about “creating meaningful, contemporary, idea- based civic spaces that are socially useful and publicly generous.  In this episode, your host Elizabeth McIntyre and special guest, Monique Woodward, have an intriguing conversation which covers topics such as: Growing up in the construction industry through her father; The beginnings of WOWOWA; Why she loves working with brick; Her experience with the Think Brick Awards; All about Nightingale Housing; And much more... This episode and many others can be found on all major platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to Rate & Subscribe to our podcast to never miss out a new episode. You can also let us know who you want to hear next and what topics we should talk about by leaving us a Review on Apple Podcasts.  Mentioned in this episode: WOWOWA Architecture Think Brick Awards Social & Links Follow @ThinkBrickAustralia on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook Follow @wowowaarch on Instagram

Our guest in this episode is Bonnie Herring from Breathe Architecture. Bonnie is the director of architecture and sustainability at Breathe and was the project architect of The Commons, which was the precursor to the groundbreaking sustainable apartment development model, Nightingale Housing. Bonnie participated in the Dulux Study Tour in 2015, where she visited Japan, Paris, and the UK. In this interview, Bonnie shares how intense the reporting and reflection during the Dulux Study Tour was, the difference between studying buildings in books at university compared to experiencing buildings in person, and the sustainable learning outcomes Bonnie gained while visiting extra-large scale projects as well as at famous architecture studios. This interview is conducted by Daniel Moore, an EmAGN representative based in Victoria.

As housing prices increase, more and more older women are seeking access to affordable housing alternatives. Nursing homes, retirement villages, expensive private rentals and traditional owner-mortgage arrangements are no longer meeting the financial or social needs of many. Hear about existing and emerging alternative housing options in Victoria—why they are needed, what they are trying to achieve and how they are funded. Speakers: Jennifer Kulas – Development Manager, Nightingale Housing, 2020 Churchill Fellow investigating innovative housing models for women Caryn Kakas – Head of Housing Strategy, ANZ Bank Natasha Liddell – Development Manager, Women's Property initiative Anneke Deutsch – President of WINC – Older Women in Cohousing This talk was presented by the City of Melbourne with Jo Cannington, Affordable Housing Manager, facilitating the panel discussion.

Dan and Greg interview Matt Nardella, founder of Moss Design, a Chicago design-build firm with an array of residential and commercial projects, and a bent for nudging clients and neighbors toward sustainability in small, but meaningful increments. Interviewee: Matt Nardella Intro / Outro: “Highway Chile”, by the Jimi Hendrix Experience Discussed: - NewSchool of Architecture San Diego - Architects as developers, contractors and multi-disciplinary designers - In praise of not designing projects on a spreadsheet (and finding the gray zones of zoning) - Credit due to: o Ted Smith > The Red Office o Jonathan Segal - Architect, Know (and Sell) Thyself! - The SCI-ARC Blowout - Ending brute-force office culture > how to not “punch down” - “We (architects) should be interviewing them (developers)” - Monocultures of design making people sick and unhappy? - Nightingale Housing, Melbourne - Jeremy McLeod and Maria Yanez - You don't need to spend more money to achieve sustainability – you just need to seriously undertake site analysis and translate that into a building, while thinking like a builder and the client – or being both, potentially. - Want to build? Blog first! - “Granny flats” are back in Chicago and the city is building 9,000 new units in the West Looop – will that help the housing crisis? - On being a “bike warrior” - Are people in happy countries just driving less? - Vision Zero - The best way to make an argument for bike commuting is to just do it - Park(ing) Day

In 2014 Jeremy McLeod and the team at Breathe Architecture completed an innovative, ethical, self-driven apartment development called The Commons. Despite selling very well and winning a number of awards, it did little to shift the market in a more ethical direction.This led Jeremy and his partner Tam to start Nightingale Housing in 2016—a not for profit that produces financially, socially and environmentally sustainable housing at-cost. Since then Nightingale has completed four buildings with another 12 on the on the way. In this episode of the podcast Jeremy and I delve into how and why Nightingale has evolved over its journey, the design principles the company sees as critical for its work, and how to ensure that every architectural project can have an impact through implementing a few fundamental principles of sustainability that just make sense.

Interview with María Yanez, an assistant development manager at Nightingale Housing. We will talk about her and their visions for the future of cities, how Nightingale changes the development industry, what sustainability means to them, and many more. Maria Yanez forms part of the development management team at Nightingale Housing, a not-for-profit organisation that provides economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable homes across Australia. Maria holds a Master of Architecture degree at the University of Melbourne and was recently awarded the 2021 Grimshaw Award for Architectural Engineering and the Dean's Award Master of Architecture 2019 and 2020. She is a registered architect in Chile and has previously led design studios at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, alongside the 2016 Pritzker Prize architect Alejandro Aravena. She is currently a design tutor of the Bachelor of Design program at The University of Melbourne. You can find out more about María Yanez and Nightingale Housing through these links: María Jose Yanez on LinkedIn; Nightingale Housing website; Nightingale Housing on Instagram; What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities! I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in. Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Nightingale Housinghttps://nightingalehousing.org/

After the disruption to MDW 2020, Home Made is returning with a new impetus as we emerge from the experience of Covid-19 lockdowns in an altered relationship with our homes. As vacancies rise in investor grade apartments, and city dwellers look to the regions for an improved quality of life, what is the future of compact living in Melbourne? Inspired by the last decade of local housing innovation, which is unique in Australia, this exhibition explores what a more community-centred, sustainable model of housing might look like, and how we can provide attractive, generous lifestyles for all incomes and household types in our urban centres. The exhibition presents a survey of housing projects both built and unbuilt, which reflect new approaches to finance, design, development, and shared living, including by Nightingale Housing, Assemble, Property Collectives, Tripple, and the Third Way. Together, these diverse models suggest a more optimistic and inclusive vision of how housing can shape our city. Home Made will open with a special launch event presented in collaboration with New Architects Melbourne. Focusing on what we can learn from the communities making these projects home, a panel of residents will share their personal experiences and reflections, revealing what happens when design intention encounters the complex realities of everyday life.

In this episode, Jessica Reynolds hears from Jessie Summons, COO of construction company Matrak, advisor for design company Good Design, and co-founder of housing development company Nightingale Housing. Jessie discusses her involvement in her many different projects over the years, and her passion for sustainability as a driving force behind each venture she takes on.

This week we spoke with activist and researcher Daisy Charlesworth about cooperative cohousing projects around the world. Here are the key points:why is it unsustainable to buy/own investment properties?what is cohousing and cooperative housing?what does cohousing and cooperative housing look like in practice?Here are the links for some of the projects discussed:Nightingale Housing, Melbourne, AUSLILAC, Leeds, UK Mietshäuser Syndikat, Germany

Listen back to this discussion with Andy Fergus, Alexis Kalagas and Katherine Sundermann around the theme 'What is home'. This talk was presented as part of a 5-day long program exploring 'Who we are together, and what is home?', with talks and workshops supported by RACV. Andy Fergus is an urban design critic, commentator and practitioner. Andy is a design advocate at City of Melbourne, co-director of Melbourne Architours and Studio Lead at Melbourne School of Design. Through these roles Andy is engaged with the community, government, design industry and students to advocate for more inclusive, ethical and high-quality environments. Andy’s multidisciplinary background encompasses urban design, planning and architecture, enabling Andy to act as a translator between these disciplines. Andy is also a Nightingale Housing collaborator, a City of Sydney Alternative Housing Ideas Finalist and works in the facilitation of a number of non-speculative urban development prototypes. Alexis Kalagas is an urban strategist and writer. Previously a foreign policy advisor with the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet, he spent four years at the interdisciplinary design practice Urban-Think Tank, working on housing and inclusive urban development projects in Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Inspired by time living in Zürich and London, he has a particular interest in scalable alternative development models for affordable housing, including the role of digital innovation. He has explored these themes as a Harvard GSD Richard Rogers Fellow, a finalist in the City of Sydney’s Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge, and as a participant in the 2019 Seoul Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism (with TEN). Katherine Sundermann is an Associate Director at MGS Architects, leading masterplan projects for universities, creative employment areas and housing precincts. Drawing on her experience working as an architect and urban designer in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, Katherine is passionate about promoting ‘deliberative development’ models in Australia, to help create more diverse and inclusive neighbourhoods. Together with Andy Fergus and Alexis Kalagas, Katherine is a finalist of the City of Sydney’s Housing Ideas Challenge, with a housing model that brings Zurich-style cooperative housing to Australia.

BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE. Eve Picker: [00:00:03] Hey, everyone, this is Eve Picker. And if you listen to this podcast series, you're going to learn how to make some change.   Eve Picker: [00:00:19] Eve Picker: Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing. My guest today is Jeremy McLeod. Jeremy is the founding director of Breathe Architecture, an architecture studio located in Melbourne, Australia. Breathe is a world class architecture firm delivering fabulous projects to its clients. But Jeremy isn't resting on his laurels. He really cares about the ever widening gap between those who have wealth and those who do not. And so 12 years ago, he embarked on a journey to deliver sustainability and affordability in one housing model. His first project, The Commons, was met with huge success. Now, with a waiting list of over 8000 buyers, he intends his Nightingale project to be an open source housing model led by architects. Be sure to go to Eve Picker dot com to find out more about Jeremy on the show notes page for this episode. And be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform,Small Change.   Eve Picker: [00:01:35] So hi, Jeremy. It's really lovely to finally meet you.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:01:40] Yeah, I did think we were doing this interview over Zoom so I was surprised to see you in my office in Australia. Thanks for coming.   Eve Picker: [00:01:46] Oh, you thought it was by Zoom. I told you it was local. It's really fun to be recording in your beautiful building and actually see it because I've really wanted to do that for a long time. So you're an architect and you've taken your fabulous education and you're working on a new housing model for Melbourne, Australia, where we're recording today. And I wanted to talk about what's kind of driven you to think about that, to develop a better housing model and what even that means.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:02:16] It's not hard to build a better housing model in Australia. It's because our housing system is broken. I mean, the interesting thing about Australia is that we're the richest country per capita in the world, yet we have one of the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the world. But importantly, we have over, at the last census, we have over one hundred and sixteen thousand homeless people here. So for an incredibly wealthy country with lots of opportunity, there's incredible inequity here. And that inequity is growing. In countries, you know, Scandinavian countries or Austria or Germany or anywhere in Europe, basically, there's an affordable housing requirement. In London there's inclusionary zoning which requires you to put in 20 percent affordable housing. In New York there's inclusionary zoning, but in Australia there is no inclusionary zoning, which means that the private housing developers can build whatever they want without including any affordable housing.   Eve Picker: [00:03:18] So, not held accountable for the economy at all.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:03:20] No, absolutely not. And so in that instance, then you would assume it's the responsibility of the state to provide housing for its people. But in the 1980s, state governments around the country started divesting their responsibility for housing and people through a public housing system and started giving it to smaller, not-for-profit organizations, church-based or faith-based organizations or community housing providers to provide housing. And they started selling down their assets and importantly, stopped building housing. And so what we've seen is a steady growth of homelessness at the same time as a steady growth in wealth in this country. As an architect. I mean, before I was an architect, I studied environmental design. So I understand, you know, inherently the issues around climate change. I've looked at the issues around the last IPCC report which says that, you know, if we're not careful, we're going to find 2 billion refugees globally, a billion coming out of Africa and a billion coming out of Asia. Where do you think those people are going to be? And we also understand that people at the edges are the people that suffer the most in times of climate change. So, I mean, I think that climate change and homelessness and housing are all intrinsically linked and that we need to resolve both those issues simultaneously. And we need to resolve those issues very rapidly. The state doesn't... has divested their responsibility. and the private sector obviously is interested in returning profit to their shareholders, not in delivering kind of, you know, on corporate responsibility goals that, you know, may or may not exist within their boardrooms. So the idea for us was that we would build a model, a prototype basically to encourage private developers to change the way that they worked. And our contention was that you can build housing that simultaneously builds community that is sustainable and that is affordable and it returns some fair and reasonable return back to investors.   Eve Picker: [00:05:35] You thought this was an important role for you as an architect? Because it's an unusual role for an architect.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:05:44] Yeah. Look, I mean, of course, my first love is architecture. I would love to just design great buildings all day, every day. I would love to build great housing. But as an architect yourself, you would understand that to make a great project, you need three things. You need a great architect, you need a great builder, you need a great client. And so if we're trying to build great housing projects in Melbourne, it was, you know, let's assume for a moment that Breathe Architecture was a great architect. I can find a great builder, but I couldn't find a great client. So for us to be able to deliver on the projects that we needed to, I felt that the only way was to become our own client.   Eve Picker: [00:06:26] That makes sense.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:06:28] Yeah. And to basically build a system that could be replicated, that was kind of the birth of Nightingale.   Eve Picker: [00:06:35] Right. I watched your TedX talk, which I thought was really interesting. And you said that there's a population explosion going on here, which I know, but I think I didn't realize it was quite so rapid. But how many people in Melbourne today?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:06:48] So there's five million at the moment. We're going towards 8 million by 2050. It's essentially a hundred thousand Melbournians every year for the next 30.   Eve Picker: [00:06:57] I think it's one of the fastest growing cities in the world, right?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:07:00] Yeah. So interestingly, we've always been smaller than Sydney. We've always been the little sister to Sydney and we're now about to outstrip Sydney in terms of population.   Eve Picker: [00:07:08] Yeah, I can feel it every time I come and visit. You talked in that TedX talk about urban compression versus urban sprawl, which I thought was a really great way of describing what's available and what's probably true in most of the United States as well. The idea being that urban compression is like warehousing people in really dense, maybe warehousing isn't a way to say it, but building very dense, high-rise housing products in inner cities versus urban sprawl, which is building, you know, the American/Australian dream of a house on a lot. Right? And not much in between yet. So what's in between look like?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:07:50] Well, I mean, the interesting thing here is it's all about politics, right. So, in the centre of our city, it's all old commercial land. It was a commercial centre. So it's easy to build one hundred and eight story towers there to warehouse people, so to say, because no one objects to that, because everyone sees that if someone builds a 108 stories there, then I can then build my old shop to 108 stories and I'll get that value uplift. So it's a great capital gain. And the city, in the middle ring suburbs, so in all the places really close to infrastructure, schools, hospitals, work, public transport, those areas there are all held by the city's wealthiest population. They're well-moneyed, they're well resourced  and they've got a very, very loud political voice. And they say very clearly to the state planning minister and to the state politicians that they don't want any increase in density around them. But like San Francisco, instead, they've got no issue with density per se, just not in my backyard.   Eve Picker: [00:09:04] Yes. NIMBY, right?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:09:06] So that's right. So they're the NIMBYs. So, instead what happens is that if you're a first time buyer in Australia, if you could possibly afford to be a first time buyer here, you can't afford to buy a house in the middle ring suburbs close to work, close to hospitals, close to schools.   Eve Picker: [00:09:22] Yeah, you're very far away.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:09:24] You end up very far away. So in Sydney, I saw a graph recently where if you're a nurse and you work in a hospital and you're a first home buyer, you're an hour and a half away from the nearest hospital that you are working in.   Eve Picker: [00:09:37] Wow.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:09:37] That's three hours every day. Yeah.   Eve Picker: [00:09:40] So in effect, those people are really the ones that need to be closer to the city and need to be, have access to public transit.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:09:48] Absolutely.   Eve Picker: [00:09:49] And of all of those things to make, to make their lives work.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:09:52] Well, to make the city work for all the well-moneyed people as well, you know. Yeah. So the city works because of those people. And so, and the other issue that we've got in Melbourne is this incredible sprawl issue where currently we have built over 40 percent of our farming land. So we've got 60 percent of our farming land left, but our population is growing at unprecedented rates. At the same time, we've got pressure where China is coming in and buying our farming resources. So they're buying, you know, beef, dairy, big farmland, so I worry about food security for, you know, for Australians in the future when there's 1.5 billion Chinese and 600 million middle class Chinese, you know, in a time when food security becomes a big issue all of our food will be being exported.   Eve Picker: [00:10:49] Wow.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:10:49] So I see that as this incredible, this madness of us building over all of our good farming land.   Eve Picker: [00:10:56] And then the other piece of it is, I think you and I agree on this, that many new buildings are built as a financial commodity. And really, they're really about making money not about making place better, which is really disturbing to me because I think you can take the same money and build, you know, add to a city in a really meaningful way or not, right? So...   Jeremy McLeod: [00:11:20] Yeah, looking at examples, like there's a suburb in Sydney called Ultimo and over 90 % of Ultimo has been bought by investors. So essentially a lot of our apartments, and in Melbourne, in   Eve Picker: [00:11:36] And is that, like, little single-family houses or...   Jeremy McLeod: [00:11:38] No, so it's all apartments. So the whole, nearly all ...   Eve Picker: [00:11:41] So it's a bit of a ghost town then? Or is it just all rental?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:11:44] Well, a lot of it is rental. You know, until very recently, there were no foreign ownership maximums on how much of an apartment or, or how much of a building you could sell to foreign owners. So we were. we had Australian developers selling 100 percent of their buildings to offshore waiting lists in Kuala Lumpur or Shanghai. We would find that, you know, whole buildings are owned by offshore investors that have never been to the city or have never seen the actual apartments. They bought it off a spreadsheet through, through an investment vehicle. And of course, when you get a city built on a spreadsheet, it becomes a pretty, pretty sad outcome.   Eve Picker: [00:12:24] Right. So your journey started in 2007 when you bought the piece of land where you're sitting on right now, right?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:12:35] Yeah.   Eve Picker: [00:12:35] And, so where did you begin?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:12:38] Well, so maybe  I'll go back to 1972 when I was born. So, so my parents were a couple of hippies. When I was about eleven, my dad took me to old Parliament House to lobby the government then about public housing in a suburb called Footscray in Melbourne. So then I go on study sustainability, environmental design, and then I go on to be an architect where my focus is on studying housing. I then work for a big firm, and when I'm working in that big firm, I end up working on, you know, 88 story towers, which just, you know,.   Eve Picker: [00:13:18] And the toilet details, right?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:13:19] Yeah. Yeah, lots of toilet details, lots of stairs, correct. But it was the last building that I worked on in that big practice, I was working on the carpark for six weeks.   Eve Picker: [00:13:29] Oh, that's really crushing.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:13:30] And I thought that that was crushing and I didn't think it was a good use of my time or, it wasn't that I was interested in, you know, housing cars. What a meaningless act. So I start Breathe Architecture in 2001. When I started Breathe Architecture, the simple idea was that every room would have a window so the occupants could breathe.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:13:53] So in 2007, as an architect working in the city, we'd been working for a bunch of property developers. It was, it was disappointing. We resigned a couple of commissions, we got fired from a couple of commissions because we wouldn't back down on certain things like, you know, we wouldn't take the solar panels off the roof. We wouldn't take the,.. yeah, yeah, we wouldn't take the solar hot water out of the  building. We wanted to make sure that we got winter sun into the building, you know, like. really simple things that we wouldn't back down on.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:14:29] So after that, we decided that we would partner with some other architects and we would try and embark on building a prototype building. So there were six of us. Six architects. We all came together, we bought this site. It was originally called Nightingale back in 2007, and it took us until 2013 to finish it. So it took us six years. In the middle of it, thanks to sub-prime issues in the United States, the financial crisis washed across the shores to Australia. By the time I needed finance to build this...the idea was that it would be a zero carbon building. A building that focused on sustainability and community and affordability. By the time I needed to get money for that, it was after the financial crisis had actually, bit into Australia as well, and we lost our funding to build it. And so then...   Eve Picker: [00:15:22] Why did you lose the funding, is it because banks just got more conservative? Or..   Jeremy McLeod: [00:15:28] Yeah, banks just got more conservative.   Eve Picker: [00:15:30] So the same reasons I saw in the States.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:15:33] Yeah, and look, I actually don't blame the bank. I think that leading up to the global financial crisis, you know, it was too easy to get money. So as a group of six architects, you know, we were about to borrow seven point one million dollars, you know, on a kind of prototype project that hadn't been built before. So I can understand why the bank was nervous by the time, you know, we got into, you know, 2010, 2011.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:16:01] We went and met with a whole different raft of impact investors. We met a group called Small Giants and Small Giants bought the project off us. They renamed the project from Nightingale to the Commons because their marketing team thought that was a good idea. I can, I can live with it, but you know, what's in, what's in a name. But anyway, the Commons then ended up being delivered and in 2014, it won the National Award for Sustainability, the National Award for Housing. And it became, you know, kind of a destination for people to come and look at. And so in the following year, we opened the building up for tours. We took every property developer in the city through. We took Melbourne residents through. And we talked a lot about, you know, the importance of change in our housing model. And then the idea was, off the back of that, that we would influence change in the marketplace.   Eve Picker: [00:17:01] Well, that was one of my questions here. Has your work influenced the status quo?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:17:06] Well, the interesting thing was that when we, when we completed the Commons and it won all those awards, and it got lots of media and lots of people were interested, the answer to that is no. It was seen as an exception to the rule. And so, the idea was that the pilot project or the prototype project would influence change, but it was seen as an outlier.   Eve Picker: [00:17:26] Interesting. And like just breaking up a bit. So what is different about the Commons, this building?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:17:32] So the Commons, I think that if you want to build something that's affordable and sustainable simultaneously, every project manager says that you can't do that. Every project manager will tell you that sustainability is more expensive and so to build sustainability means that you can't build it affordably. And so instead, Bonnie Herring, who was the project architect of Breathe who led this project, her whole approach was one of sustainability through reductionism. So she constantly interrogated the idea is, if we don't need it, take it out. Ask people, what are the things they actually need not what they want from some real estate glossy brochure.   Eve Picker: [00:18:14] What they think they need because everyone else has it right.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:18:17] Yeah, but when we when we started talking to people, the interesting thing was that what people actually wanted was space, light, outlook, plants, you know, natural materials. No one wanted marble bench tops, you know, a thousand down lights, white shag-pile carpet, a swimming pool, three bathrooms, you know, what people actually wanted, we were finding, was just kind of really good meaningful housing. So our approach on The Commons was, yes, sustainability through reductionism. If I step you through that, you'll see that it makes total sense. So the first thing is, we took the basement car parking out. And why is that important? So, for a seven million dollar building, the basement car park was gonna cost seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So by taking that out, we reduced the build cost by over 10 per cent. But importantly, we just, we didn't just reduce the price of all the apartments by $30000 each. We also took some of that money and put it into making the rooftop garden, you know, really incredible. Where you would have ordinarily had a driveway coming in off the street and a ramp up and then a ramp down to get into that driveway and a roller door to close that driveway off to get down to the basement carpark, instead, Instead of having that there, we put in a wine shop where the driveway and the ramp would have been.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:19:42] And then we sold the wine shop for four hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. We then took the revenue from the wine shop and we used it to increase all of our glazing to get the best possible double glazing that money could buy in the country at the time. We pumped up all of the insulation on our walls. So we made all of our walls fatter. we got better insulation in them. So we used that money to improve the thermal envelope of the building. Then, that then made the apartments perform...so we've got the star rating system here, so you need kind of, you need a minimum of five stars or an average of six stars to be able to get a building permit here. And instead, we set the minimum at seven and a half stars here. The panacea is 10 stars means you don't require any energy for heating or cooling, which would be incredible. But we'll make it to seven and a half stars out there. More modelling told us that the building could operate within a thermal comfort range of between 19 and 27 degrees. And the interesting thing is that that's kind of the European thermal comfort range of the Germans deemed that to be.   Eve Picker: [00:20:47] So that's all Celsius right now. Got it. That's about ...oh I can't do that in my head right now. We'll figure it out later.our Yeah, I'll let you do the calculations. You'll figure it out later.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:20:57] But but basically, the Australian thermal comfort range, you know, is generally been seen to be in between 19 and 22 degrees.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:21:08] So by stretching it out from nineteen to twenty seven, the German comfort range, all of a sudden we found that we didn't need to put air conditioning in. When we take air conditioning out, we save another 5 percent out of the building costs throughout the building and obviously drastically reduce the operational costs and operational energy required in the building. Normally every two bedroom apartment in Melbourne at that time was being designed with two bathrooms. So a primary bathroom and then an en suite to the master bedroom. Instead we took out all of the en suites, so we had one bathroom in each apartment. We kept them at the same size. So the apartments, by taking out the really energy intensive detail-heavy bathrooms, we saved about $10,000 out of the cost of each of the apartments and all the living rooms got seven square meters bigger, which is 70 square feet. We took out all of all of the individual laundries out of each of the apartments and instead put one beautiful laundry on the rooftop, which overlooks an incredible rooftop garden.   Eve Picker: [00:22:14] And I assume you could save money on all the stacks. Correct. And the space in the unit. Correct. So everyone's. Exactly right. And the cost of all these appliances. Exactly. Seventy costs.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:22:28] Exactly. You get it. You get it. So you do that over and over again. We have one shared Internet connection. So we bring fibre into the building and we share that Internet throughout the building. So we pay for it at one point and then we use bulk buying to share that. It gets really, really cheap, really, really fast internet in a city where the Internet here is expensive.   Eve Picker: [00:22:47] That's smart. That's a very good idea generally to buy it as a retailer.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:22:50] It's expensive and it's poor quality here. And we do the same thing with the power through an embedded network.   Eve Picker: [00:22:57] So it's this constant that you're a very pragmatic approach. It's really pragmatic, pragmatic to chisel away what's really necessary in a building and and really make it work. Yeah. And think about it.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:23:10] You know, what can you share? It's all about sharing and using, you know, bulk buying and trying to get maximum utilization. So you know what? Our laundry, for example, is six washing machines, which could use a lot more than having, you know, 24 washing machines that get used in a very infrequently.   Eve Picker: [00:23:28] I think a lot of people might find that concept difficult, but I suppose you don't need to find a lot for one building do you.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:23:38] Well, I mean, initially when we started when we finished this project and we started work on Nightingale 1 and I'll tell you why we started Nightingale 1, there were eleven people that had written to us to say, if you're going to build another building, like The Commons, can you please let us know. And so we put those eleven people on a waiting list. That waiting list through Nightingale housing is eight and a half thousand people.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:24:03] So apparently there is eight and a half thousand people in Melbourne that would be happy to have a cheaper apartment with a bigger living room, with a beautiful shared rooftop laundry ,with one bathroom, with no individual or private car parking, but with a free car-share membership to, you know, 20 cars parked within a 400 meter radius.   Eve Picker: [00:24:29] And to be fair, in a beautifully designed building.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:24:33] Thank you.   Eve Picker: [00:24:35] I'll sign up for the waiting list!   Jeremy McLeod: [00:24:38] I think the great thing about, you know, being your own client is that you can definitely make sure that the architecture is what it should be.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:24:49] So I actually for people listening in, the thing that's also very incredible here is The Commons. This building sits right on a railway line. You can see there you can see the station. Out of the windows. So it's really it's really a transit oriented development as well, which really makes it much easier not to have a car.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:25:08] Yeah, absolutely. So there's that train station right next door or the bike path right next door or the 503 bus and then the tramline.   Eve Picker: [00:25:16] And the garage packed full of bikes.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:25:18] Yeah. So we do have the highest ratio of bikes to apartments in the country. Yeah, but the interesting thing about that is that we just looked at what were the bike ratios used in the Netherlands and then we used those and brought that over here. So it's not none of this is rocket science, at least, you know. How's it been done?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:25:36] So you have investors in this project and how did they do?   [00:25:42] So in the Commons there were six architects and all of us and we all invested. So Tamara and I, my partner and I, yeah, we literally bet the house on it. And so, yeah, out of the Commons, we did at the end of the project when Small Giants, we bought the site, we redesigned the site, we got the D.A. approval, we got the price in place. Then we had to sell the project at Small Giants. They sold they bought the project back off us. And at that point we had bought the site for five hundred and forty five thousand and we sold it back to them for two million dollars.   Eve Picker: [00:26:23] How did they do then?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:26:27] Eventually, they never actually disclosed to me how they did, but they built and entire brand off the back of The Commons.   Eve Picker: [00:26:35] There you go!   Jeremy McLeod: [00:26:36] But interestingly, everything sold in The Commons. The project was delivered on time and on budget. And you know.   Eve Picker: [00:26:43] And did it sell quickly?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:26:45] Yes. And that kind of thing else was.   Eve Picker: [00:26:48] Yeah, that's probably keeping in a project like this, because having a couple of vacant units if your profit and a building like this.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:26:54] Yeah. That didn't happen here.   Eve Picker: [00:26:57] That's fantastic. So then, you know, the triple bottom line here actually made a financial return as well. That's a pretty strong argument for doing the right thing. Yeah. How hard is it to find investors who really care about the triple bottom line?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:27:16] Well, so maybe let me let me just come back to the move from The Commons to Nightingale 1. Or why we started Nightingale Housing. Do you want to hear?   Eve Picker: [00:27:25] Oh, yeah, absolutely.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:27:26] So this idea that that the Commons would drive change by being a prototype building. And I said before that it kind of failed because it was seen as the exception, not the rule. What we decided to do after that first, you know, with that wait list of eleven people was to, if if the market wouldn't change, then we would drive change in the market and we would continue to build buildings until such a time as the market actually came to us, you know, until we didn't need to exist any longer. So we established Nightingale Housing. We got some corporate sponsorship. We got a government grant. We got a grant from the National Australia Bank. So we built a really small team of about three of us and we embarked on Nightingale One.   Eve Picker: [00:28:15] And that's a non-profit driven.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:28:18] Yes. So Nightingale One was still delivered. And the way that we wrote that feasibility study was that we capped the return at 15 per cent per annum and then we capped that return at a three year project timeline. So essentially it was a gross return of forty-five per cent over three years. So there was a lot of pressure on us to deliver that for our investors to deliver it within the three year time window.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:28:42] So - to get to get - we tried to do that at 10 per cent per annum. And when we tried to raise impact investment to build a carbon neutral building. So when we tried to raise equity,  I spoke to probably 60 architects in the city because I wanted architects to invest in it. I wanted architects to own it. I want to share the IP with architects that would take it and scale the idea. I met with architect after architect for about, you know, six weeks and we ended up getting 27 investors all putting in $100,000 each. A lot of people with not a lot of money borrowed against their homes to invest money in. And when we first said we want to return 10 per cent per annum, ur first investor said that wasn't enough. It wasn't it didn't match the risk versus return matrix for them. And so they wanted fifteen percent return. So we ended up taking all the equity. In Nightingale One it was about a 10 million dollar project and we raised $2.7 billion in equity with a capped return of 15 percent per annum. Going forward from that ...   Eve Picker: [00:29:49] Did you return the 15 percent?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:29:52] Yeah, absolutely. We returned. And so the way that we that our model worked was that we have a construction contingency in the project, and so after we returned all the money to the shareholder, exactly as we said in our prospectus at the end of the project, the money left over from that contingency, instead of taking that as developer, which a developer would normally keep that as [crane?]. We then gave that back to the residents. So the residents that had balloted into the building, because by that time there was more demand than there was supply after the success of the comments. So we had to run a public ballot where the mayor drew the names for the apartments out of a hard hat. And those residents, those lucky residents at the end of the project, their apartments were about $90,000 under market. And when we finished the project, we gave the building a check for $109,000 dollars back.   Eve Picker: [00:30:43] Wow. And just to be clear, because in the US apartments are usually, well, this is this is all for sale. At this point. Right. Yes. Which is really what the market is in Melbourne.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:30:53] Yeah, absolutely. It's all you know, it's all for sale. Everything's for sale.   Eve Picker: [00:31:00] Which is in itself an interesting discussion. That's really amazing. So now now that was the first project. What's happening next?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:31:08] Well, so after the completion of Nightingale One, and then we did Nightingale Two which is just completed and Nightingale Brunswick East, which is just completed.   Eve Picker: [00:31:18] How many units did you build?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:31:19] So Nightingale One. So the Commons is 24 apartments, Nightingale One is 20 apartments, Nightingale Two is 20 apartments, Nightingale Brunswick East is a hybrid with a property developer. So that's 38 Nightingale apartments and about 25 straight to market apartments.   Eve Picker: [00:31:37] So that's a real mixed income project.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:31:39] Yeah. Yeah. And that's interesting. It's interesting. The developer was so good. They funded the whole project. They agreed to run everything transparently with us. So it's you know, so Nightingale's principles are that it has to be minimum seven and a half stars, has to be carbon neutral and operations can't have natural gas pumped into it, has to have, you know, all those Nightingale principles. And we've got to lock up. We also have a restrictive caveat which says that if we're selling and owning an apartment to you and we're capping the maximum sale price that we're selling to you based on a maximum return to investors, then you can't sell it tomorrow and make a massive profit.   Eve Picker: [00:32:19] And so you want to keep it affordable.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:32:21] Yeah, absolutely. And so this developer, Lucent, agreed to do all of those things. They handled all the delivery side. And the benefit the upside for them was that they were trying to sell apartments in a street where someone else was about to sell 700 apartments. Someone else was selling 60 apartments. There was about a thousand apartments on the market. They broke their building in half, did half Nightingale half straight to market. We said that we would do that only if the entire project, including their straight to market apartments, were carbon neutral in operations and met the minimum seven and a half star requirement. They agreed to do that. The Nightingale apartments went to ballot. They balloted in one day. So they sold all of 38 apartments in one day.   Eve Picker: [00:33:04] That's astounding.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:33:05] Which then got them the sales target that they needed to get financial closure from the bank to cover the debt, which meant that they could then demolish the building, start their basement construction, which gave them a massive program jump on all the other buildings. They then opened their straight to market sales. And some of the people that it missed out on the Nightingale ballot went and bought there because they could afford to. But also, they were interested in the sustainability idea of carbon neutrality and the idea of community. And then it gave them a kind of a massive differentiator in the market. And so when no one else was selling anything in that street, they sold their 25 apartments in three weeks, which was unheard of.   Eve Picker: [00:33:50] I don't know what balloting is. Can you explain that to me?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:33:53] Sure. So ordinarily, the way that a straight to market developer would sell their properties by employing a real estate agent. The real estate agent generally charges a fee of about 2.25% percent. So there's two different ways you can sell in Australia. But if you if you employ a real estate agent here, they'll charge you 2 per cent of the gross revenue of the project, so if  the project is a 10 million dollar project, they'll charge you $200,000 for the 20 million dollar project, they'll charge you $400,000.   Eve Picker: [00:34:22] Because they're going to sell all units for that.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:34:25] That's right. They are going to sell all the units for that. If you historically had trouble selling, you would go to financial advisors in inverted commas, who are meant to be independent and they could sell your apartments to people looking for investment advice and they might charge six or seven percent. Okay. I think they're trying to outlaw that at the moment. Because they're their commission obviously makes it difficult, the rate of their commission is so high, it makes difficult for them to make independent advice about what to buy into or what not to. But Nightingale's says no real estate agents, no sales, no marketing. Instead, it has a series of information nights, it talks to all the purchasers and it provides information, fearless information, warts and all, about the great things about the project and the not so great things about it.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:35:17] So for The Commons, for Nightingale One, we talk about all the great things, but we also say that it's right next to the train line. So the great thing about that is that it's really close. But it also means that train runs 24 hours on a Friday and Saturday night. And if you got your window open, you know you can. You're going to hear it. You know, that's a very, very it's a place of urban flux, and that where you see all the single story warehouses now, you'll be a construction site for the next five years. So we talk about all those things openly.   Eve Picker: [00:35:43] So how do you find those people, though? How did they find you?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:35:46] I don't know. So so, look, we don't have you know, we don't have a marketing team. We had some political trouble on Nightingale One where we got a planning permit. The developer next door took us to the appeals court here based on the fact that they didn't want us to sell apartments that were 20 percent bigger, 20 percent cheaper and 120 percent better than theirs, because I think that they thought that it might provide a market problem for them. They took us to the appeals court and they were well funded by the developer. And we weren't particularly well-funded. And they had a good legal team. And then they had our permits stripped from us. So they got our permit taken off us.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:36:33] Well, it's a very, very strange planning system here where  individuals can veto a local government decision. It's very interesting. So we then had to lodge a new  planning application from scratch for Nightingale One.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:36:53] But the interesting thing was that when Nightingale One lost the local planning permit at that at the appeals tribunal, the local media, particularly the liberal media, got very, very bent out of shape about a project that was trying to deliver carbon neutral housing affordably, particularly trying to house millennials and first time buyers that had just been totally priced out of the market. And they got really bent out of shape that that the one thing that that project was defeated on at the appeals court was on car parking. So basically the whole fight was that we didn't provide any car parking. How our whole contention was that it sat on top of a train station next to a place where people were unlikely to have cars. Well, over 30 percent of them didn't have a license. Thirty percent of them didn't have cars. And the last 40 percent had filled out statics saying that they would either get rid of their cars when they moved into the building or that they would garage them in surrounding buildings that have masses of basement carbon that is under utilized. Well, the biggest thing that happened for us was that it totally changed the landscape for us in terms of everyone suddenly had heard of Nightingale, heard about this.   Eve Picker: [00:38:03] That bad thing was great marketing.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:38:05] Yeah. The bad thing that nearly broke me emotionally, like Breathe architecture was nearly broken the day after that. We couldn't believe what had happened in the 21st century in this city, given its incredible problems with climate change and kind of housing justice. And anyway, what we found was that beyond that, after that, our waiting list, like the week after that, our waiting list had jumped from 125 people to over 400 people.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:38:34] So people had read it in the mainstream. Wow. So you're wonderful. You're absolutely right. I think that was the start at which people actually started to hear about us.   Eve Picker: [00:38:42] So because we're running out of time. But I really want to know what's next.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:38:47] Mm hmm. Good question. So off the back of all of the Nightingales we've done, what we found was that Nightingale One opposite the Commons, they're both really great strong communities. But what we've found is that there's that they've actually started to work together as an organism. So the residents of The Commons and the residents of Nightingale One have worked together to lobby the council, to close the street at the front. So in two years time, the street will be closed and they're going to pull up the asphalt and replace it with grass and turf.   Eve Picker: [00:39:18] Well, it's wonderful. And so you've started to see really build a community here.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:39:22] Yes. And they and importantly, what else we've seen is with those two buildings in close proximity to each other, they've started to engage with other residents around. So it's not just individual communities, but everyone within that street now and across the railway lines and around the corner are all now kind of engaging in street parties, garage sale days, you know, Christmas parties or just talking to each other as they go past. There's no more anonymity. And so the big thing for us was how do we kind of learn from that? And so we bought seven sites to Street south of the Commons. And that's what's called Nightingale Village. So that's there was gonna be seven buildings by seven architects, all carbon neutral communities, no individually owned cars, a car share hub for 15 share cars, a consolidated bike park with 450 bikes. But importantly, no cars allowed on the streets. So on the streets above, again, pulling up the asphalt, replacing it with grass, trees, street furniture and making it a place for pedestrians and cyclists. That's fabulous. Yeah. And so then, you know, at that scale, it jumped from a 10 million dollar project to one hundred million dollar project. We had a superannuation company, HESTA work with an organization called Social Ventures Australia, an impact investor, and they put in 20 million dollars worth of equity into that project. And then we've had a big bank here, National Australia Bank essentially build a two billion dollar housing innovation fund to step into the gap that our federal government and state governments have left to. Yeah. And so the debt will be funded out of that National Australia Bank housing fund. So it's been incredible getting institutional finance coming in to make that happen. And then within that, obviously, we understand and that we're part of the gentrification problem. And so we've been looking at this idea of inclusionary zoning and why can it work in London and why doesn't it work here or why isn't it called for here? And basically, the property council here, lobbies our planning minister, not to put inclusionary zoning. They say that we won't be able to afford it, that it will make..   Eve Picker: [00:41:32] But who does the Property Council represent.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:41:36] Property developers. And so. And so we've decided at Nightingale Housing to now make sure that every project we do has 20 percent affordable housing in it, whether there's inclusionary zoning or not. And so what we're intending at Nightingale Village, we're now putting in 20 percent affordable housing. And so within that, we want to prove to the planning minister and to the government that you can put in affordable housing, that you can salt and pepper it through your developments, that it can be done well and it can be done elegantly and it can be done equitably. And if we can do it, there's no reason why a well-managed, publicly listed housing company or development company can't do it. So, yeah, look, the big push for us is now to actually make sure that we don't just we just try and get better with every project. We try and think through what are the other issues that need to be done and then we'll deal with it.   Eve Picker: [00:42:35] OK. So I have a couple of really quick questions for you. What trends in real estate development architecture do you see emerging that you think are important for the future?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:42:47] Yeah. Yeah. So, look, I mean, we're not plumbing natural gas and all of our buildings are carbon neutral in operation. So it has to be powered by 100 per cent certified green power, 100 percent renewables. So that's the measure that we use in Australia before we started Nightingale, every property developer told me that was impossible because people liked gas to cook on their woks, you know, to have a wok burner in their apartments and that they would never go without gas. Since Nightingale One has been complete, there are now five zero gas buildings within a one kilometre radius of Nightingale One. Quite interesting. So we've shifted the bar on this idea of can I operate without gas? Are my purchasers interested in carbon neutrality and around here? Absolutely.   Eve Picker: [00:43:37] And of course, if you don't have gas you don't need to run gas lines and that is another savings.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:43:41] Correct. In the building. Correct. No gas made a room. No gas particularly. Right. Right. Yeah.   Eve Picker: [00:43:46] Wrap up question here. So where do you think the future real estate impact investing lies? Because you've been dealing with those impact investors from day one?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:43:56] Yeah. It's a really good question. I think that and I'm very, very interested in your model, because I think that peer to peer lending is going to be really interesting about people being able to invest in projects with meaning. We see that the people of Melbourne who funded the early equity projects in Nightingale, they did it not so much for the return, but because they cared about what was happening to our city, what was happening.   Eve Picker: [00:44:25] That's why I built small change, because I think the people in the cities they're in and they just want to be part of making it better.   Jeremy McLeod: [00:44:33] Yeah, I agree. Totally. And so it's incredible to see Melbournians investing in projects and people with not a lot of money, but literally, you know, borrowing against their own home to help make this happen, because they're not just interested in making the city more livable place, but they're also interested in and they care about the future generations and what's happening to Millennials being locked out of the housing market and wondering what's going to happen for them in housing security in the future, so I don't think that's going to put a lot of pressure on institutional funds. We've got a lot of superannuation money in Australia.   Eve Picker: [00:45:11] So do you think the interest requirement of 15 per cent is going to grow?   Jeremy McLeod: [00:45:15] Well, the interesting thing is, since the village. That's the last time we paid those rates. Oh, very good. So since then, we've got two new projects on line and the offers are becoming back in. And now, you know, 13 per cent and 11 per cent because, you know, by the time we finished the village that's 14 projects. And with a wait list of eight and a half thousand people, the single biggest risk in a project is sales and settlement. Right.   Eve Picker: [00:45:39] There's not much risk. Right. Right. So I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you very, very much. Yeah, there's lots more and want to know, but it's pretty fabulous what you're doing. Thank you.   Eve Picker: [00:45:55] That was Jeremy MacLeod of Breathe Architecture and the Nightingale Project. If you want to build something that is affordable and sustainable simultaneously, says Jeremy, every project manager in Melbourne will tell you you can't do it. So Breathe instead defines sustainability through reductionism. They discovered that what people actually want is really good and meaningful housing with space, light, great outlook and plants, not marble countertops, three bathrooms and shag carpet. They have achieved affordability and sustainability through reductionism. If you don't need it, take it out.   Eve Picker: [00:46:40] You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today's episode at my web site Eve Picker dot com. While you're there, sign up for my newsletter to find out more about how to make money in real estate while building better cities.   Eve Picker: [00:46:57] Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And thank you, Jeremy, for sharing your thoughts with me. We'll talk again soon. For now, this is Eve Picker, signing off to make some change.   Eve Picker: [00:47:17] Be sure to go to Eve Picker dot com to sign up for my free educational newsletter about impact real estate investing. You'll be among the first to hear about new projects you can invest in. That's Eve Picker dot com. Thanks so much.

Jessie Summons Jessie is the Chief of Staff and Operations at Making Things. Making Things is a global collective of designers and makers. Previously, Jessie was the Co-Founder and CEO of well-known social enterprise Nightingale Housing as well as Head of Development and Outreach at Startmate.  Q&A The first few minutes of this episode I cover some important frequently asked questions about the podcast. Just like Sam Harris does it in his popular 'housekeeping' segments!  EDM Sign up to our monthly email (called 'The Purpose') for details of our months podcasts, upcoming events, discounts and opportunities Patreon Support Humans of Purpose via Patreon. You can buy me a monthly notional coffee here ($4) to support the podcast and its next wave of improvement. In return, I'll recognise you in all future podcasts, notes and our website and give you exclusive access to monthly ask me anything episodes and topic deep-dives.  Promotion If you'd like to advertise your products or services with us, fill out this short typeform or just email hello@purposeful.com.au. You can learn more at humansofpurpose.com.au.  Support the show.

Jason Twill has a career spanning over 20 years in urban development. Jason has been at the forefront of built environment transformation. His career experience includes delivery of sustainable mixed-income housing projects throughout New York City, delivery of Vulcan Inc.'s South Lake Union Innovation District in Seattle, Washington, and serving as Head of Sustainability and Innovation for Lendlease in Australia. In 2016, Jason was appointed as an Innovation Fellow and Senior Lecturer within the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology Sydney and leads research into regenerative urbanism, housing affordability, and property economics. Jason was designated a LEED Fellow by the United States Green Building Council in 2014, and he was named a Next City Global Urban Vanguard in both 2015 and 2017. Jason is also an appointed Champion and advisor to Nightingale Housing in Australia.   Love for NYC Jason was born just outside of Philadelphia and grew up on the east coast.  He then moved to Columbia, Maryland, before he moved again to a suburb outside of New York City, during high school.  Where Jason grew up shaped his passion for the built environment and his desire to transform it. “My father worked in New York, and I think I grew up hating the suburbs and the monoculture status to it of car dominant environments.  I think experiencing New York City as a young adolescent and teenager really introduced me to tolerance, diversity, language, ethnicity and all these different things and I just fell in love with the city.” - Jason Twill   September 11, 2001 Jason fell in love with architecture and construction.  He was working in New York for an architecture firm and was planning to go to school at Columbia.  In 2001, Jason was working for Mass and Duffy in the World Trade Center during the attacks and barely escaped.  He postponed going to graduate school due to the aftermath of 9-11.   Shifting from Architecture to Real Estate Jason began to gravitate towards real estate development.  He wanted to be a change agent around sustainability, social responsibility, and development in cities.  Jason was pushing people to get affordable housing. “I remember a lot of us getting made fun of. There was a cluster of us that we're incubating the urban green, the green building chapter of New York City, and just kind of fighting to have a voice to educate the building industry, the architects, and the engineers.” - Jason Twill Urban Apostles Founder Jason is founder and Director of Urban Apostles, a start-up real estate development and consulting services business specialising in regenerative development and deliberative housing models for cities. Urban Apostles' work focuses on the intersection of the sharing economy and the art of city making. He is a co-founder of both the International Living Future Institute and Green Sports Alliance as well as an originator of the Economics of Change project. In 2017, Jason founded and launched the City Makers' Guild, an education, advocacy and research group promoting more equitable and inclusive cities.   Book Recommendations The Geography of Nowhere:  The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler Dark Emu:  Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture by Bruce Pascoe Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond 1491:  New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann The Well Tempered City by Jonathan Rose Garrison Institute Tune into this podcast to listen to the rest of Jason Twill's amazing journey in this podcast hosted by Charlie.   Connect with Jason Twill: Linkedin   Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES: Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   Announcement:  GBMS is excited our membership community is growing.  Consider joining our membership community as members will be given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions to, if you are preparing for an exam there will be more insurances that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member and so much more.   If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2019 GBES

Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Jessie Hochberg the CEO of Nightingale Housing which is based in Melbourne Australia. Nightingale is an innovative facilitator in the housing development market bringing together housing creators (the development team)and end users at the outset of projects. Their template has much to be admired. Jessie explains the unique approach of Nightingale and the need for innovation in the housing sector. For more details go to www.planningxchange.org. Audio engineering by Zak Willsallen.

This week, we sit down with Lola Digby-Diercks of Nightingale Housing. Nightingale Housing is leading a housing revolution in our major cities by constructing multi-residential buildings that are financially, socially, and environmentally sustainable. HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM TODAY’S EPISODE:   Some background on the Nightingale Model; What it means to develop driven by social, environmental, and financial sustainability; The Baugruppen Model and how it’s been used in Europe to date; How the group buys in to the project; Why it’s focussing on providing affordable housing for owner-occupiers; Complementing businesses such as not for profit cafes in the commercial spaces; Ensuring that commercial tenants share similar core values; Using a balloting system for each apartment; Providing housing for key service workers; Getting buy-in from designers and architects to have their own space in the project; Why Nightingale has focussed to date on Melbourne; Plans for the future; And How and where to find out more    LINKS OR ARTICLES WE MENTIONED:   Nightingale Housing Nightingale Housing IG page   SPEAKERS IN TODAY’S EPISODE Marcus Roberts - Mortgage Broker Michelle May - Buyer's Agent Lola Digby-Diercks - Nightingale Housing   ASK US ANYTHING!   Have a money question you want us to answer? ask@sydneypropertyinsider.com.au   FOLLOW US: Facebook   ENJOY THE SHOW? Don’t miss an episode, subscribe viaiTunes. If you like it, please leave a review! Or, find us on the podcast app of your choice, such as Spotify   Please note that any views or opinions presented in this podcast are solely those of the speakers, and do not necessarily represent those of any business. These views and opinions are general in nature, and do not take account of your personal objectives, financial situation and needs. Please consider whether it applies in your circumstances and seek professional advice wherever appropriate.

Social purpose leaders describe how social impact investing has provided a flexible, mission-aligned and supportive approach to fund their organisation's vision. Rebecca Thomas talks to Lucy O'Flaherty from Glenview Community Services and Jeremy McLeod from Nightingale Housing. Read the full article: http://www.socialventures.com.au/sva-quarterly/funding-their-vision-social-purpose-organisations-share-their-stories/

Join us at MPavilion for an exploration of the potential intersections of landscape architecture and deliberative development, presented by AILA Cultivate—a committee of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) that aims to expand ideas of landscape architecture beyond traditional practice. Deliberative development, a designer-led development process introduced to mainstream Melbourne by Nightingale Housing, is introducing a new vocabulary of spaces to Melbourne’s suburbs. Deliberative development projects are significant in that they recast crises—like housing affordability, increasing urban density, climate change, extreme work-life balancing acts and changing family models—as opportunities, creating new ways of residing, working and socialising in cities. The conversation around deliberative development has predominantly focused on the discipline of architecture and the apartment typology. Given the significant social and ecological elements of deliberative development, this dynamic discussion will ask: what is the scope for landscape practice to contribute to—and potentially lead—development projects? Speakers: Andy Fergus, urban designer at the City of Melbourne and co-director of Melbourne Architours; Brighid Sammon, senior urban planner at Hansen Partnership; landscape architecture practice Emergent Studios; Kate Dundas, landscape architect, strategic planner, urban designer and co-founder of 3000acres; and Rodney Wulff, co-founder of Tract Consultants. Image courtesy Tract

In PX30, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Jessie Hochberg of Nightingale Housing. Jessie studied Art History at University and then made a series of transitions into the housing creation sector. Nightingale Housing offers a different approach to housing development by making the process from conception one of collaboration between designers and end users. Jessie explains the 'template' and the benefits both financially, environmentally and socially for those involved. Podcast released 20 October 2017. For more details go to www.planningxchange.org.

In PX30, Jess Noonan and Peter Jewell interview Jessie Hochberg the CEO of Nightingale Housing which is based in Melbourne Australia. Nightingale is an innovative facilitator in the housing development market bringing together housing creators (the development team)and end users at the outset of projects. Their template has much to be admired. Jessie explains the unique approach of Nightingale and the need for innovation in the housing sector. For more details go to www.planningxchange.org. Audio engineering by Zak Willsallen.