Eco-friendly design under a mansard roof in Windsor

A new boutique development at 17 Ellesmere Road, in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Windsor, is set to offer sustainable living and innovative design.

Designed by Jackson Clements Burrows architects and built by the sustainability-minded Balfour Development Group, the development will offer 15 one-bedroom and eight two-bedroom units. The apartments range from 40 square metres to 80 square metres, and one-bedroom units begin at $395,000. Two-bedroom units begin at $570,000. The average price for a unit in Windsor is $467,000, according to RP Data.

Balfour Group managing director Steve A’Beckett expects the apartments to be in high demand.

“It’s a very uniquely designed building, a very beautiful, sculptural form, it’s very well priced,” he says. “It ticks all the boxes, which is what we try and achieve with all our developments.”

One of the key features of 17 Ellesmere Road is sustainability, as the building was designed to have a 6.2-star rating according to the Sustainable Tools for Environmental Performance Strategy rating system, which was developed by Moreland Council and is a significantly more stringent standard than the Building Council of Australia.

“We have water harvesting and reuse for both wastewater and landscaping, we have solar power, which makes a fairly significant contribution to keeping running costs down. We have cross-ventilation mechanisms,” A’Beckett says.

“Sustainability is a very key part of our corporate platform,” he says. “I want my kids to inherit a better world than I am inheriting, and so we try to make long-term sustainability a priority.”

The development is close to Chapel Street and Prahran’s shopping strips, and it is six kilometres from Melbourne CBD.

Apartments are being marketed by Kay & Burton agents Michael Armstrong, Peter Kudelka and Chris Alcock. The development came on the market last Wednesday, July 20, and Alcock says three apartments have been reserved so far.

Construction on the project is set to begin in October of 2011 and finish in December 2012.