Winner: Sustainable building of the year 2023. Six leading Australian architecture firms have collaborated to create Nightingale Village in Melbourne, Australia.

This project is a zero-gas residential precinct located five kilometres from the Melbourne central business district (CBD).

Comprising 203 homes across six buildings with eight commercial tenancies at street level, Nightingale Village sets a new standard for sustainable, community-centred design in a high-density context.

Each building was designed according to the social, environmental and financial sustainability principles of Nightingale Housing.

The Melbourne-based organisation aims to reorient the broken Australian housing market away from real estate as an investor commodity – and towards providing quality homes that support sustainable living and community connection.

Judges comments: "Nightingale Village provides a replicable, market-viable model for how new housing can benefit both people and planet. It offers affordable homes in the face of a housing crisis while reducing inhabitant's reliance on fossil fuels, cutting out all need for natural gas and even attaining special permission to provide only 20 parking spaces for more than 200 homes – a radical decision in its suburban Australian context."

Studio: Architecture Architecture, Austin Maynard Architects, Breathe, Clare Cousins Architects, Hayball and Kennedy Nolan
Project: Nightingale Village