Nightingale Wurrgumnag marks a new chapter in Nightingale Housing: the first horizontal community of sustainable terrace homes. Located on a former industrial foundry site in Coburg North, the project reimagines the legacy of industry through landscape rehabilitation and adaptive reuse. By embedding circularity in the design process, the site’s past becomes a foundation for its future, where materials, memory, and ecology are reinterpreted to support a new model of community living.

The development comprises 72 terrace homes — ranging from one-bedroom to three-bedroom dwellings — designed to support families, singles, and friends alike. Every home is oriented to the north, ensuring abundant natural light and passive thermal performance, while gardens and courtyards complement the shared communal spaces Nightingale is renowned for.

Connection to nature underpins the project. The site’s transformation focuses on landscape rehabilitation, with biodiverse planting that restores habitat and strengthens ecological links. Positioned alongside Hosken Reserve, the development connects into a broader green network, allowing the industrial past to give way to a generous, living landscape that supports both people and nature.

Delivered in partnership with Women’s Property Initiatives (WPI), 20% of the homes are dedicated to community housing, ensuring a socially inclusive community. The project is car-free by design, with no private car parking provided on site. Instead, residents are supported by 8 shared parking spaces,  including electric vehicle charging, car share, visitor, and accessible spaces, and generous bicycle parking, making sustainable transport the default choice.

Nightingale Wurrgumnag is more than housing: it is a collective model for living lightly, where community, affordability, sustainability, and circular design come together to shape a new way forward for suburban Melbourne.