This idea explores the subject site and offers a design that is built to support and foster the potential future innovative community hub (Mornington House) through providing a mix of predominately timber constructed housing options, commercial, restaurants and supporting facilities nestled amongst pedestrian connections
between Mornington Heritage building, Soldiers Memorial Gardens and Unley Shopping Centre. It ensures that the site is fully activated, creating a unique sense of place and community spirit.

The idea showcases a living village development with contemporary cutting-edge housing that encapsulates affordable, social and marketing housing that emphasises environmental initiatives with state-of-the-art living for people of all ages to call home and in turn, cements Adelaide’s reputation as a destination for entrepreneurship, innovation and affordable housing.

The subject site located within the City of Unley, Adelaide, includes a heritage building that has potential to be transformed into an innovative entrepreneur community hub where businesses, researchers and investors collaborate. To the west, the subject site adjacent to a single storey residential Bungalows, to the east,
it adjoins the City of Unley Soldiers Memorial Gardens, to the north it is the local Woolworths shopping centre divided by the perimeter boundary wall, and to the south is the Thomas street. It is obvious that the Thomas street has a fine grain of subdivision and built form, the existing Thomas street scape includes a series
of single storey residential Bungalows with consistent height, setback and roof forms, forming a streetscape with an articulated silhouette typical of the village centre of the 1920’s. A development should present a robust yet activating and inviting response to this environment, one that acknowledges and respects this fine
grain character.

Therefore in response to the environment, using contemporary CLT (or similar) timber construction methodology, the idea is to use modulated construction, with variation to the interior space, it offers the cascading built form that starts form the west of Thomas street, a series of townhouses with gable roof form that acknowledges

At the podium level and above levels, the design provides a variety of open space that accommodates multiple uses no mater big or small. The main landscaped level above the retail space integrates the landscape and architecture together, creating a vibrate sky garden with amenity for everyone. With a central void dividing
the west and the east, the podium separated into two parts with footbridges connected, hence the residential building core lands on either sides of the development.