11 minute read
21 Take me to the river
Melbourne’s western growth corridor has seen the arrival of many new neighbourhoods, but none quite like Mambourin. The community’s emphasis on convenience and walkability help set it apart, marking it as a new kind of community in this fast-growing space.
A vibrant neighbourhood in the making, Mambourin will rival the amenity of an innercity suburb – 38kms from the CBD. Designed for those wanting the convenience of urban living without the accompanying hustle and bustle, the community has been designed with everything needed for residents to live a connected and active lifestyle.
“In the very initial stages of masterplanning, we identified two pillars we wanted to focus on – convenience and connection,” says Frasers Property Development Director, Penny Dabner.
Take five
Mambourin is billed as a 5-minute community. Or in other words, a self-contained neighbourhood where everything residents need in their day- to- day lives can be found just five minutes from home. This means public transport, a future town centre, a school and local business district, residents’ club and parks are all just a short walk away.
“Australia’s response to COVID-19 has really put a spotlight on local neighbourhoods and an emphasis on the need for walkable amenity, local connections and support,” adds Penny. “The five minute community concept resonates even more in this new environment.”
The community is fortunate to be adjoining a future train station on the Regional Rail Link, which will connect residents to Melbourne’s CBD and surrounding areas via an integrated transport network of buses and trains. This, paired with the recently opened Barrabool Park and Club Mambourin – as well as so much more to come – means Mambourin is right on track to achieving exactly what it set out to do – creating a neighbourhood where nothing is more than five minutes away.
The year Mambourin takes shape
2021 has been Mambourin’s biggest year yet, as the community starts to take shape. There are more than 200 homes currently under construction, with most of these residents expected to move in by the end of the year. The completion and opening of Club Mambourin and Barrabool Park are providing unparalleled leisure and recreation opportunities for the community’s very first residents.
“We wanted to have great recreational spaces available for residents to use, right from the day they move in,” says Penny. “Delivering early amenity means there are places where new residents can meet and socialise with neighbours, which is vital for a sense of community to start to flourish.” Perhaps one of the biggest drawcards for the neighbourhood, Club Mambourin has been modelled on best-in-class wellness and recreation centres to offer residents a place to focus on health and wellbeing. Including a kids splash pool, lap pool and spa, multi-sports courts, cafe, gymnasium and function room, residents will have no trouble fitting plenty of exercise and a little bit of leisure into their everyday routines.
Elevating this amenity even further, Barrabool Park provides a place for the community to meet, enjoy open spaces and entertain the whole family outdoors. With a range of activities to suit all ages, residents are spoilt for choice with play towers, flying foxes, a basketball court, skate areas and even a water play splash zone. It’s the perfect spot for lazy afternoon picnics, while the park’s natural amphitheatre provides the setting for future popup cinemas and community events. That’s only the beginning
As a 5-minute community, Mambourin will eventually be host to everything residents need in their day-to-day lives. This includes a future town centre that’s poised to become the community’s beating heart. Its offerings will include a shopping centre, a Council library, performing arts centre and kindergarten, as well as maternal and child health facilities. Children won’t have far to walk to get to school either, thanks to the future prep-12 school located not far from their front door.
Linking it all together will be an integrated network of walking and bike paths. “Every home will connect to the town centre and the future train station via a network of footpaths, shared paths and bike paths connected throughout the community,” says Penny.
Community at heart
Once complete, Mambourin will be home to 1,200 residents and an unparalleled level of amenity for those who live there. “While the community may be small, the level of amenity is significant and will rival that of many well-established suburbs in Melbourne,” states Penny.
“It’s really rewarding to see the community starting to come to life,” she further adds. “There’s no greater feeling than watching people enjoy the amenity and build their lives in a neighbourhood you’ve helped to deliver.”
With a range of opportunities currently available, you too could be living a connected lifestyle at Mambourin. To make your enquiry, give us a call on 13 38 38.
First in, best addressed
There’s a general acceptance that when you move into a new community there’s going to be a wait before it all comes to life. But at Burwood Brickworks, Frasers Property is challenging that assumption by doing things the other way around.
When the very first residents moved into Burwood Brickworks in Melbourne’s east, there was more than just their brand-new home awaiting them. Thanks to the frontloading of amenity undertaken by Frasers Property Australia, residents were greeted with the convenience of a shopping centre and entertainment precinct right on their doorstep. It meant that even just moments from moving in, they were already in a place they could be proud to call home.
This approach is far from typical though. Traditionally, in most new communities, the people move in first while amenity comes second. And while this works for some, Frasers Property prefers to do it differently. Relentlessly focussed on creating a sense of belonging in the places it creates, delivering lifestyle amenity and everyday conveniences from day one was the core of its vision for Burwood Brickworks.
Not only has it given new neighbours the places and spaces to meet, welcome their friends, and enjoy a great meal or a night out with the family, it has also meant residents have been able to move in with less construction disruption around them. Burwood Brickwork’s new residents enjoy the convenience of having the Burwood Brickworks Shopping Centre – which recently achieved the Living Building Challenge® Petal Certification and became recognised as the world’s most sustainable shopping centre – right on their doorstep. From shopping for staples, catching a movie at Reading Cinemas, or stretching in a yoga class, it’s all available just moments from home. And it’s that fact that’s creating real momentum for the project, explains Sarah Bloom, General Manager Development for Frasers Property.
“With the shopping centre open, apartments settling and residents moving into their new homes, buyers are able to come to Burwood Brickworks and get a real taste for what the lifestyle offers,” says Sarah. “We’ve reached that point now, far earlier than I think we ever anticipated, where the community sells itself by virtue of the fact it already feels so established. That’s a rare feat given the project was only launched three years ago.”
First impressions
Burwood Brickworks welcomed around one hundred of its first residents last March. Here’s what they’re saying about being some of the first to move into an already well-established neighbourhood.
“With a husband and two kids, the thing I really like about my apartment is its functionality. It’s just a really clever use of space. And I love how integrated the community is. It’s definitely got that homely, local-neighbourhood vibe to it.”
“I’ve really enjoyed my experience with Frasers. We’ve actually recommended this particular development to a couple of friends. The shops are thoughtful shops. You’ve got Woolies, a beautiful butcher, a chemist and a yoga and wellness centre. I can walk out my door and be in green spaces, grab a good coffee, have lunch, and be upstairs in the gardens. I feel like I’m in the country, while not actually being in the country. It’s just so nice.”
“It’s very convenient, there are Chinese grocery stores, butcher shops, liquor shops and so on. The Woolworths supermarket on the ground floor also boasts a green concept, which is rare in Victoria. I was very happy when I settled on my property, the apartment was better than I thought. It’s very beautiful and the landscape is also extremely elegant. I’m very satisfied with it.” “I lived on a farm, so having garden trees, flowers, those things are really important. It’s fantastic to have that right outside the front door. When it started to transition into something real, it was so exciting for the neighbourhood too. It just changes the whole place.”
“I really like the location. We’ve enjoyed living here and it was an easy decision to make. But it was also nice to see all the discussions around sustainability, plans for open spaces, and building a community. They’re all really important things, reinforcing the message that Burwood Brickworks is all about community.”
Burwood residents, welcome event Burwood residents, welcome event
Burwood residents, welcome event
First of its kind
Shopping centres are not typically considered as being synonymous with sustainability. But at Burwood Brickworks, Frasers Property has delivered not only the world’s most sustainable retail centre, but a blueprint for an entire industry.
Back in 2019, Live proud magazine published a story about Frasers Property Australia’s quest to create the world’s most sustainable shopping centre. An ambitious undertaking — requiring a reimagining of everything from orientation, materiality, store layout, energy and water use and reuse, ambience, and accessibility — Burwood Brickworks Shopping Centre set out to achieve the world’s most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment: Living Building Challenge® (LBC®) certification.
And earlier this year, it did it.
The International Living Future Institute (ILFI), the global authority which administers the LBC®, has granted Living Building Challenge® Petal Certification to the one-of-a-kind shopping centre in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs — the first retail building in the world to be recognised.
Shared experience
Frasers Property Australia’s Living Building Challenge Manager, Stephen Choi, says that like all new endeavours, many orthodoxies had to be challenged and discarded along the way, not least a preparedness to share intellectual property with others in the industry.
“When we set out to do this project, we had a fairly robust conversation internally about what we would share with others,” says Stephen, “Because, with all the time, money, and effort that was going in to create a net-positive centre, there was intrinsic value in those learnings, and did we really want to give it away? In the end, we have opted to be open because if we can give our competitors or others in the retail industry the benefit of what we’ve learned, and they start doing it too, it gets easier, cheaper, and more efficient for these kinds of projects to become the norm.” Since the Burwood Brickworks shopping centre opened in late 2019, Stephen has given more than 70 talks and tours to colleagues and industry players curious to know more about this benchmark-setting project. As a result, the influence of Burwood Brickworks is being felt in some unusual places.
“We’ve had approaches from hotels, community centres, other developers and major retailers, intrigued by what’s been done here,” says Stephen. “And often they come away with a larger sense of what’s possible.”
“For instance, I did a tour with the management team of a major Australasian retailer — people who’d flown in from all over Australia and New Zealand to see Burwood Brickworks — and ostensibly they came to talk about rooftop solar. But after seeing how the Living Building Challenge® had led us to rethink everything from single-use takeaway containers to natural ventilation to non-toxic materials, they left with a determination to re-engineer their store designs right down to the packaging.”
At Frasers Property’s Rhodes Corporate Park in Sydney, the lessons of Burwood Brickworks are also being taken up.
“We’re working with commercial tenancies at Rhodes Corporate Park for new fit-outs that utilise some of the learnings from Burwood Brickworks. As they contemplate a return to the office in 2022, they’re looking at ways to make the environment more natural and more comfortable for their employees, and there’s a great deal of the technical research and data from the Living Building Challenge® that informs that approach. So that’s hugely gratifying to see, and a testament to the shift toward more sustainable buildings.”
Burwood Brickworks, VIC
