Applewood:
Award-winning Retirement Village, Tram Road, Doncaster, Victoria
Applewood Project Partners
The 10 Ha site in Doncaster was developed by Tigcorp, developers, owners and operators of high-quality retirement villages in Victoria. The project was developed in stages over a 10-year period, delivering 375 houses and apartments.
Development Management Services
Reporting to the Managing Director, Urban Neighbourhoods provided client-side Development Management services over the life of the project.
We provided the vision, strategy, planning, execution and delivery of the entire development over a 10-year period, two years of which were dedicated to master planning and infrastructure design.
Specific Client-Side Development Management services provided include:
Portfolio Management
Board Reporting
Concept Development, Evaluation Concept Planning
Due Diligence and Master Planning
Strategy, Advisory, and Delivery
Project Lead: Managing Master Planning, Urban Design and Project outcomes
Site Limitations
As the brownfield site had been a former Telstra linesmen school and apple orchard, it required remediation cleanup and significant back-haul infrastructure to the site before the development upgrade.
The site was steep for any sort of residential development, especially a retirement village, which presented its own challenges.
Unique Urban Design
One unique aspect of our design is that even though the site has some steep areas there are no steps on the entire site. This means that residents and visitors can move about the development even if their mobility is, or becomes, restricted.
‘The overall wellness of residents and the community is an important, and often ignored, function in the design of retirement village developments.’
Future Proofing
The high-quality network, materials and future-proofed technology (fibre to the home) were part of the original design of the village. Now, 10 years after completion, the Village still operates better house connectivity than the NBN and looks remarkably timeless. In fact, it’s hard to tell the early stages from later ones.
Five key consideration during design were:
plan the development around the key trees and topography
build an ageless community
design the village to look and feel like a housing estate, not a unit development
hide key infrastructure harmoniously in the landscaping
future-proof the village in sustainability outcomes to minimise operating costs.
Five key consideration during design were:
plan the development around the key trees and topography
build an ageless community
design the village to look and feel like a housing estate, not a unit development
hide key infrastructure harmoniously in the landscaping
future-proof the village in sustainability outcomes to minimise operating costs.
Award-winning design
The development was also awarded Best Retirement Living Development Award Victoria in the 2013 Property Council of Australia’s Innovation and Excellence Awards.
Talk to us about client-side development management so you can realise the true value of your investment.
