Serving the expanding rightsizer market, Gore Street facilitates the turnover of established family housing, providing empty-nesters with vibrant, connected homes beyond retirement.

Comprising 49 highly contextual residences, the development is defined by a sense of permanence and quality, giving back to Fitzroy’s character through landscaped thresholds and green edges that soften the robust architectural form.

The residences provide infrastructure for confidence, security and convenience, without foregoing culture, local texture, and dynamic neighbourhood context.

“It’s downsizing without feeling like you are downsizing,” says Woods Bagot Design Director Peter Miglis. “We’ve removed any sense of compromise through generous proportions, crafted detail and privacy with outlook.”

The architecture aspires to create homes through carefully calibrated proportions, generous spatial organisation and authentic material expression. Solid in nature yet elegant in its resolution, Gore Street restores the rhythm of the street through refined balcony articulation, reinstating the proportions of the workers cottages that once held the site.

Through detailed context analysis, the project references Fitzroy’s light industrial past, echoing the materiality of the surrounding warehouses. Drawing from the surrounding Victorian and Edwardian fabric, the building is composed of a robust redbrick podium with recessed glazed levels above, breaking down scale while grounding the development within the existing urban grain.

Celebrating the coexistence of old and new, Gore Street elevates the enduring local character with a progressive edge. Heritage corbel details are reinterpreted in the modern masonry, contemporised with sleek curvature and crisp lines, while a statement pivot gate takes on a progressive interpretation of iron filigree lacework, creating a curated arrival experience.

“We’ve aspired to create a sanctuary, carving out a sense of calm and serenity within a vibrant metropolitan context,” says Miglis. “While being very much a part of the neighbourhood, residents should also feel like they can leave the energy of Fitzroy behind and be ensconced in a sensorial, biophilic oasis. This is one of our fundamental pillars when designing for human-centred experiences.”

Architecture, interiors and landscape are tightly intertwined, with interior design by Hecker Guthrie and landscape architecture by ACRE. A north-south axial breezeway introduces natural light and cross-ventilation, softening the building mass and creating a breathable built form that balances solidity and permeability. Inside, interiors are informed by soft minimalism, incorporating tactile finishes of oak, terrazzo and brushed metal.

According to post-occupancy data, most residents are of the demographic over 55; these purchasers, while largely still actively employed, are proactive in ensuring their retirement is engineered to support a lifestyle of connection, community and purpose. With 75 percent of purchasers moving from established family homes, Gore Street strives to deliver simplicity of lifestyle, creating low-maintenance homes with lock-up-and-leave factor.

With each Piccolo site carefully selected for its wealth of local culture, every new home comes with inbuilt society, culture, and community. One new resident describes the ease of her assimilation into the Gore Street community.

“There’s a lovely camaraderie here,” says Sue. “We were a real community from the word ‘go’, and it’s only developed as time has gone on.”

A formal dining room on the ground floor provides social infrastructure for residents to host drinks on a Friday afternoon or a private family gathering. “I met more people in three weeks here than I met in nine years at [my previous residence],” adds Sue.

The guest suite – a self-contained unit operating on a time-share basis – enables residents to host visitors while maintaining a sense of independence and privacy, while the communal workshop and tool library helps to foster a sense of community and promote an active lifestyle for future retirees.

“We’re trying to change the mindset towards a communal mentality,” says Woods Bagot Senior Associate Robert Rosamilia. “There is so much to be gained from shared spaces, including enhanced quality of life, fostered social connection, and maximised value of the site. It’s architecture at its most generous.”

Rosamilia adds that shared amenity creates ‘third spaces’ or urban living rooms that bridge the gap between private and public. With many residences working from home, the communal spaces provide the perfect environment for receiving clients and visitors, keeping residents’ homes private.

Already, Gore Street is enriching the Fitzroy environment, delivering a considered model for right-sizers that balances architectural integrity, community connection, and enduring local character.

Media enquiries
Isla Sutherland
Content and Communications Manager (Australia & New Zealand)