First Look: Hip V Hype Reveals Brunswick ‘Love Child’

Sustainability-led developer Hip V Hype has teamed with Melbourne architects Austin Maynard to create ParkLife 2 at Brunswick, and the project has won some serious backing. The State fast-tracked development at 427 Albert Street is the first collaboration between the two and brings together experts in climate-responsive design and development, with the backing of an undisclosed superannuation fund. That financial backing, paired with the end of an interest rate tightening cycle and an improved sentiment, enabled Hip V Hype to activate the site, founder Liam Wallis told The Urban Developer . It is also the developer’s biggest project to date. “This project represents us scaling up a little bit ... this is a good scale, I think. If you scale up too much more than this in any given building, it sort of limits your ability to invest in innovation and doing things differently,” Wallis said. “The risk settings just sort of become prohibitive. We would like to be doing a number of projects of this sort of scale at any given time.” ▲ Austin Maynard Architects founder Andrew Maynard said the project used a natural colour palette that drew on the local environment. Wallis said ParkLife 2 was a unique project on an exceptional site, which he said was required at the moment to make projects work. “We’re seeing much more confidence in the market and into next year, we’re seeing a good opportunity to commence construction,” he said. “Builders [are] able to price a job with confidence and, really importantly, have the confidence to expand their book.” Wallis said there had already been strong interest in the project from the market and the construction was currently out to tender, with completion pencilled in for the end of 2027. The developer and architect want to create an exemplar in sustainable design across the seven-storey building, which would comprise 61 apartments, with Clifton Park and Gilpin Park at its doorstep. The building is being split into an east and west core, topped with a communal roof yard designed for families. It would comprise one, two and three-bedroom apartments with the option to amalgamate apartments to accommodate growing families. Wallis and partner Katya Crema have lived in three of their apartment developments, and bring experience of apartment living with a young family to the design. ▲ More than 5 million data points from post-occupancy research at Ferrars &amp; York was used to create liveable and refined apartment design. Their learnings have been incorporated into the design of ParkLife 2, which targets a minimum average NatHERS rating of at least 8.5 stars out of 10, with the building designed for all-electric, fossil fuel-free operations. Wallis told The Urban Developer that the project’s design draws on 5.2 million data points collected over 12 months from post-occupancy research at the Ferrars &amp; York project. “We’re bringing not only delivery experience but lived experience of those two exemplar developments into the project, which is a big part of our model and something that we really think is important to delivering apartment projects that not only look good but perform well,” he said. The Brunswick development has been described as a “love child” of Hip V Hype’s Ferrars &amp; York development at South Melbourne, and Austin Maynard Architects’ ParkLife at Nightingale Village, Brunswick. The developer will move its headquarters into the Brunswick project within the ground level of ParkLife 2, while also launching another HV.Hotel, following the success of the concept at Ferrars &amp; York. Wallis said the HV.Hotel enabled residents to offer accommodation to friends and family, and also provided guests with a chance to experience a “living exemplar of what better quality, more sustainable apartment living actually means”. ▲ Hip V Hype will move its headquarters to anchor the building at Brunswick. Austin Maynard founder Andrew Maynard said the project took design cues from its natural surroundings. Maynard said the area “deserves a landmark project that celebrates its singularity, quirks and natural environment”. “The design of this project has really been a collaboration because the expertise between Hip V Hype and Austin Maynard Architects is much broader. It’s even better, even more rigorous, even more thoughtful than usual,” Maynard said. “It doesn’t matter how cool you make anything look, if the everyday stuff isn’t right—the things you touch every day—you’ve got to nail it. “And that’s what this is ... a design focused on the things that make apartment living better.”

First Look: Hip V Hype Reveals Brunswick ‘Love Child’

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