Balgowlah Village

Across eight cascading towers, from four to eight storeys high, are 234 apartments and 25 townhouses, set within native gardens landscaped by Oculus, and a resort-style swimming pool for residents.

Below the towers, a sizeable carpark and retail podium are mostly underground, utilising the site slope as a natural buffer between the residences and town square.

Most apartments at The Village face north-south, reducing their reliance on artificial lighting. Louvred balcony screens provide shade and catch breezes, while a swag of energy- and water-efficient appliances and fittings are standard throughout.

An underground 500-kL rainwater tank services toilet flushing, clothes washing and irrigation, saving around six million litres of potable water a year, while the swimming pool uses a heat exchange system to turn waste heat from the shopping centre air-conditioning into warm water.

This has been help up as an exemplar mixed-use development, for liveability and environmental design and was used by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) to develop a benchmark for its Green Star rating tool, which judges on a variety of criteria, including emissions, water use and innovation.