Inside Milieu's design-led approach to apartment development: Five minutes with Michael McCormack

Milieuhas been one of the most forward-thinking developers in the last decade in Melbourne's off the plan apartment space.

Milieu, who has been developing in Melbourne's coolest inner-northern suburbs since 2010, recently branched outside of its comfort zone, launching its first project in Melbourne's south-east.

Plant Street by Milieu in Malvern, in partnership with Penfolds, will comprise just 21 apartments designed by RITZ&GHOUGASSIAN. 

Milieu has several projects that they're working towards, the first being their Elsternwick project on a sprawling 11,740 sqm, the site of the former ABC Studios.

They also have a project coming up, likely later this year, in Brunswick East next to the iconic Brunswick Baths building.

With everything going on, we caught up with Michael McCormack, the co-founder at Milieu, to talk about how they as a development company have matured with the apartment market.

McCormack says when the company was founded, a number of the team were working for a developer who had turned to creating larger projects, recalling that at the time the type of product being developed was more investor grade stock.

"There just seemed to be a gap in the market which was developing that kind of attainable townhouse or apartment in a location that we wanted to live," McCormack says.

Their first project in Fitzroy was just five townhouses, each selling to owner-occupiers. Four of the five buyers still live there today.

"We did that successfully over a number of projects before five townhouses grew to 15 townhouses, to 30 apartments, and so on."

McCormack says the intention of the company stems from the name. Milieu is a French word which means the environment or context in which one lives and is influenced.

"That's kind of at the core of whenever we're looking for a project it's response to place that's how we kind of start so we think about really the local area and how we can contribute to and improve that with our project."

To find out more about Milieu, visit their urban.com.au Developer Profile here.