Outside the Door is Part of the Product for Piccolo’s Fitzroy Project

When Melbourne developer Michael Piccolo sat down with his design team at the outset of 385 Gore Street, the question he kept returning to wasn’t what to put inside the building. It was what was already outside it. “You’ve got to look at your local amenity,” he says. “We’re in Fitzroy. I’ve done a count—there’s probably about 20 wellness centres and gymnasium facilities all within 500 metres. So why build these spaces when you’ve got them there at your doorstep?” It’s a simple idea, but one that cuts against the grain of an industry that has spent a decade racing to pack apartment buildings with pools, gyms and wellness centres. For Piccolo, the better question is what the street already offers—and what the building needs to do to complement it. “What do we need to do in our building to supplement what’s around us? Not duplicate. Just supplement.” ▲ Michael Piccolo wanted to leverage amenity outside the door at 385 Gore Street to optimise what was inside the building. Hecker Guthrie director Stacey Van Harn, who has worked with Piccolo across four projects, frames the same thinking in terms of cost and liveability. Communal amenity in apartment buildings makes her team “a little bit apprehensive,” she says, for a reason that’s easy to overlook when you’re selling off the plan. “It’s very hard to create spaces that feel activated and inviting. It’s very different to a hotel—when you go to a hotel, someone’s there to pick up your dirty towels, offer you a drink. There’s this level of service and activation which provides the atmosphere for the space.” Without that, she says, lavish amenity becomes a liability. “The minute you add a pool or anything that requires a large amount of maintenance, it’s a really big cost. And buyers in these types of developments are very aware of that now.” The test, she says, is simple: “It’s not just about making it sellable. It’s about making it livable.” The idea that changed everything Gore Street’s ground-floor plan arrived at Hecker Guthrie with a blank space marked simply “amenities.” It was earmarked for a lounge and meeting room. Van Harn says the idea for the blank space was sparked by a conversation with her husband about their small home at Abbotsford. “We asked ourselves, if we were living there, what would we want?” she says. “We live in a two-bedroom house, and we thought, what do you want as someone who’s living in a smaller inner-city space?” The answer that kept coming back was a guest suite—not a gym, not a yoga studio, but a hotel room available to residents. ▲ The hotel suite at 385 Gore Street has its own courtyard and private entry. Piccolo credits Van Harn with the idea: “I sat down with Stacey. I said, we’ve got to come up with something new—there’s got to be more than dining rooms and wellness spaces. She went away, came back with this idea ... and she nailed it.” The logic solved a quandary Piccolo had seen play out across many projects. “People buy a two or three-bedroom apartment. We find the second or third room is always set up as a guest room. There’s a bed in there, all ready, just for guests who might come once or twice a year. And there’s a cost of that extra room for a guest who comes once or twice a year.” The Gore Street hotel suite is about 40 sq m, fitted out to a standard Piccolo would compare to the Ace Hotel—with a private courtyard, full laundry, and furnishings. Building residents receive seven nights per year, included in body corporate fees, with a nominal cleaning fee per stay. Van Harn says potential buyers started to re-evaluate whether they needed a third bedroom. ▲ Hecker Guthrie’s Stacey Van Harn says apartment buildings cannot just be sellable, they must be liveable. Piccolo admits the suite was a calculated risk. “It was a punt. I was always conscious about these spaces.” But the results speak for themselves. “It’s booked out most weekends. And throughout the week as well,” Piccolo says. The concept is now rolling out in their next project, Barry Street Q, featuring a 60 sq m suite. Building community, by design Gore Street also prioritised communal space where residents could gather to foster community. Piccolo’s buyer demographic at 385 Gore Street skews heavily toward single-person households, with a notably high proportion of single women. The building’s shared spaces have become the heart of residents’ lives. “Every time I’m there, there are people gathering,” he says. “Typically drinks on a Friday afternoon, Sunday afternoon,” Piccolo says. The story he returns to most readily is Susan, a resident who turned 80 a few weeks after moving in. Her neighbours organised a birthday party. More than 40 residents joined the festivities. “She said what we’ve fostered and created is community—it’s about creating the environment for people. But you need those spaces to create the opportunity for people to gather.” ▲ The communal dining room has been well used, Michael Piccolo says. Van Harn believes community can’t be forced—but it needs to be designed for. “Not every group of residents is going to want to have that level of socialisation. But you have to give space for the evolution,” Van Harn says. And crucially, that space has to be intentional from day one, she says. “A flexi space can be everything and it can be nothing. If it’s all movable fold-up furniture that goes away in a cupboard, it’s just going to look like trash in a month’s time. “You have to create a space that people are going to want to spend time in. Otherwise it’s just going to fail.” Piccolo says Gore Street has sharpened his thinking about what comes next. “Over the years, there’s been a big focus on the architecture, the interiors, the design. But now there’s another component. “There’s that community. And how do we foster that? How do we encourage that? Because that’s important.”

Outside the Door is Part of the Product for Piccolo’s Fitzroy Project

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Outside the Door is Part of the Product for Piccolo’s Fitzroy Project

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