Project Overview

Brunswick Established is a visionary townhome community redefining how heritage, sustainability and contemporary living coexist. Set behind the preserved facade of one of Brunswick’s earliest factories, this multi-residential project by Beulah and Six Degrees Architects fuses character and circularity in an urban context.

Comprising 23 townhomes, each designed to adapt across life stages, the project champions up to 80% recycled materials, all-electric systems, edible gardens, and community-led, low-waste living. A first-of-its-kind for Brunswick, it reimagines the typical off-the-plan model, offering customisable layouts and flexible typologies to support multigenerational households. More than housing, it’s a regenerative, heritage-rich blueprint for the future.

Organisation

Beulah / Six Degrees Architects

Team

Peter Malatt, Director - Six Degrees
Amy Hall, Associate Architect - Six Degrees
Adelene Teh, Co-founder - Beulah
Rodelle Lee, Head of Design - Beulah
Justin Truong, Development Director - Beulah

Project Brief

Brunswick Established began with a bold question: What if the past could power the future? Anchored in a rare heritage shell, the brief was to create a high-performing, circular living community that balanced ecological innovation with everyday liveability. With wellbeing at its heart, the project placed people at the centre, designing for connection, adaptability and comfort in equal measure.

The site’s historical factory structure set the tone, inviting a material-led, texture-rich response that celebrates Brunswick’s layered identity. With a growing demand for flexible, family-oriented living in Melbourne’s inner north, the design needed to push the typology beyond the townhouse norm. The result? A future-ready neighbourhood of townhomes that fuse adaptability, circular thinking and place-led design - all crafted for longevity, wellbeing and genuine community connection.

Project Innovation/Need

Brunswick Established is the first-of-its-kind heritage townhome development in Brunswick to implement circular living at scale. Designed around the three core pillars of circularity - designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems, the project challenges convention through deep material reuse, adaptable design, and thoughtful sustainability.

The design team has made use of recycled materials as creative constraints, transforming salvaged bricks into landscaped paths and retaining original timber for pergolas and internal features, bringing heritage texture into everyday experience.

Up to 80% of materials will be reclaimed from the site, a rare commitment to circular construction and embodied carbon reduction. These sustainability strategies also deliver long-term value for residents, lowering energy, maintenance costs and environmental impact.

Where off-the-plan purchases often limit creativity, Brunswick Established offers unmatched customisation, enabling residents to shape homes around evolving life stages; from complete kitchen redesigns to home studios and intergenerational layouts. Detached bedroom and home office typologies support multi-generational living, offering privacy and independence within a shared address.

Each home forms part of a closed-loop circular ecosystem that combines passive and active systems—solar power, rainwater harvesting, natural ventilation, edible gardens, composting, and energy-efficient hot water heat pumps—reducing waste, lowering bills, and encouraging a more self-sufficient way of living. Its integrated approach—where history, sustainability, and resident-centred design come together—reframes what’s possible for heritage sites in urban settings.

Design Challenge

While looking into current and future market needs, we found that there’s a rise in multi-generational living (Research found 1 in 5 Australians live in a multigenerational household - the most common complaint is noise and lack of privacy ) as well as desires towards more sustainable and economical homes. We were also mindful of how we could innovate to ensure an isolated ageing population felt connected and safe via building a community design, and our responsibility as a developer towards the climate crisis.

Conventional construction generates vast amounts of waste and carbon emissions, while urban sprawl threatens natural ecosystems. Brunswick, a vibrant inner-city suburb with a strong cultural identity, has seen rapid development that often prioritises density over sustainability and community needs. There is also a lack of townhouse typology developments in Brunswick, with most new housing stock skewed towards apartments, leaving a gap for more spacious, adaptable and family-oriented living options. Beulah identified an opportunity to transform an early 20th-century clothing factory into a model for sustainable living.

The challenge lies in balancing heritage preservation with contemporary environmental standards, ensuring minimal waste, and maximising material reuse while creating homes that meet modern lifestyle needs. Another key challenge was embedding circular living principles at scale in residential development - going beyond sustainability checklists to create a truly regenerative environment. The complexity of integrating recycled materials, innovative energy solutions, and adaptable design typologies required a holistic approach, pushing boundaries in urban design, construction methodologies, and resident engagement

Sustainability

Brunswick Established sets a new sustainability benchmark for proposed multi-residential living. Designed around the three key pillars of circularity - designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems - 80% of materials are salvaged and repurposed from the original factory, bricks relaid in laneways, timber reimagined into structural and interior elements. Every townhome is gas-free and powered by solar, with integrated rainwater harvesting, edible gardens and composting. The passive-first approach ensures thermal performance and minimal energy use, while drought-resistant native landscaping restores biodiversity.

Gas-free design, rooftop solar, rainwater harvesting and energy-efficient systems significantly reduce utility bills, while edible gardens and communal composting promote self-sufficiency. Homes are also EV-ready. These cost savings make sustainable living financially achievable, not aspirational. Additionally, designing with multi-generational living in mind will extend the home’s lifespan to the next generation and save on significant renovations.
The project employed local tradespeople and sourced recycled materials from Melbourne-based suppliers, supporting the circular economy and reducing environmental costs associated with new material production.

In doing so, it contributed directly to local employment and demonstrated how sustainable development can drive economic resilience. Despite the challenge of retrofitting heritage buildings, the project achieved a 7.0 weighted average NatHERS star rating. showing strong performance in energy efficiency.
Brunswick Established makes the case for sustainability not only as an environmental imperative but as a commercially viable and scalable development model, strengthening the broader market’s understanding of what’s possible when sustainability and design are fused effectively.