Nestled into the suburban landscape of Melbourne’s Brunswick, Heller Street represents a new approach to increasing the density of inner suburbs. A disused contaminant clay pit has been transformed into a multiresidential cluster and community park. Easily settling into the surrounding landscape, the ten timber-clad townhouses form a residential archetype in which communal living is carefully curated, equally borrowing from and supporting the council parkland that defines two thirds of the site.
Designed to house families, these residences have brought the traditional back garden to the front of the development. Extrapolating notions of the migrant community, among which the front porch acts as a mechanism for direct engagement with the daily happenings on the street, this modest development encourages its inhabitants to spill out into the common space, allowing a dialogue between neighbouring properties.