Local Kensington

Local: Kensington is a landmark Build to Rent community by Local: Residential designed by Hayball and built by Hacer in Melbourne, Victoria. Atelier Ten led the sustainability strategy from early design through to Tender, helping to prove the business case for sustainability in Australia’s Build to Rent sector.

The client vision was to develop a vibrant and sustainable community with generous amenity. The project delivered 477 apartments including 10% impact housing with low running costs and communal spaces that support a healthy lifestyle.

The project was awarded a 6 Star Design Review rating (Design & As Built v1.3), the first Build to Rent project to achieve 6 Stars in Design in Australia, paving the way for future BtR projects to follow.

The Sustainability strategy prioritised passive design for climate change resilience to protect the community from future climate scenarios, The team met the challenge of balancing daylight, thermal performance and diversity of unit types through rigorous iterative thermal modelling and design testing between a number of contributors from design and delivery. This effort delivered an area-weighted average 7.8 Star NatHERS rating for the project.

Through a NABERS for Apartments Energy commitment agreement, we established a path to a 4 Star NABERS certification for base building energy in operation. This was adopted to measure how efficiently the base building runs. The commitment is underpinned by base building modelling and simple, durable measures such as untempered corridor ventilation, with efficiencies specified for lifts, domestic hot water fixtures and HVAC units.

The Green Star strategy was founded on an 100% electrified design. The roof is covered in 200kW of solar panels complemented by a Green Power procurement model to drive down the greenhouse gas emissions of operations. This configuration enables Local: to select a renewable supplier and negotiate one electricity contract for the whole site whilst extending the renewable supply option to residents.

Efficient resource use extended to water consumption, with drought tolerant native Australian plant species, drip line irrigation, 33,000L of rainwater collection for storage and re-use for irrigation helping the development to tread lightly and water use. Efficient WELS fixtures for the apartment brought home a greater than 20% reduction in potable water predicted for the development’s operation.