Lilydale House at Marrick & Co by Mirvac Design and Tonkin Zulaikha Greer.
The adaptive reuse of the heritage Nurses’ Quarters as Lilydale House makes a charismatic centrepiece in Mirvac’s urban renewal of the former Marrickville Hospital site.
The landmark mixed-use precinct integrates Marrick & Co, Mirvac’s sustainable medium-density housing development, with Council’s outstanding new library and community pavilion.
The project’s ambitious sustainability goals and complex heritage requirements drove a challenging, high-cost procurement process and demand for high-spec, bespoke materials and innovative, artisanal techniques.
Redevelopment delievered new connections and open spaces for socialising, creating safe and equitable access to new amenity, improving local habitat through new plantings, promoting wellbeing, mitigating long-term environmental impacts, and supporting local economy, culture, and community.
Lilydale House has also benefited from the modification of the overall site masterplan, whereby new residential buildings were reduced from three to two. This has made way for a generous central Common and surrounded Lilydale House with ample green space, active edges and verdant public connections through to the library, pavilion, park and Hospital Lane.
For these efforts, it has been recognised as the first One Planet Living community in NSW. The site is highly significant for its role in the provision of health care and nursing services to the local community from 1899 to the hospital’s closure in 1991.
Located on Marrickville’s main historic strip, the site is an important component of the immediate Marrickville civic precinct which also includes the Town Hall, St Brigid’s Church and the Fire Station.
The prominent two-storey Nurses’ Quarters which, along with the Main Ward Block, comprises the core of the Lilydale Street face brick buildings, presents as the most recognisable public face of the former hospital.
The Nurses’ Quarters was built in 1909 as a residence for the nurses working at the hospital, designed by prominent architect and alderman, Lindsay Thompson. It was converted to a casualty ward and outpatients’ clinic in the 1960s and was used for ancillary hospital services since that time, before being operated as a preschool in 1992.
The building has played a continuous role in the community for 100 years. Adaptive reuse of the Nurses’ Quarters as two whole-floor residences within the Marrick & Co residential complex is highly compatible with the original residential purpose of the heritage building.
The 10 principles of One Planet Living guiding the design of Marrick & Co, including adaptive reuse of the Nurses’ Quarters, are:
• Health and happiness
• Equity and local economy
• Culture and community
• Land and nature
• Sustainable water
• Local and sustainable food
• Travel and transport
• Materials and products
• Zero waste
• Zero carbon energy
Image: Supplied
The category was sponsored by GECA.
