Where Landscape Leads: The Vision Behind NINE
McGregor Coxall is proud to announce that NINE by Mirvac has received the 2025 AILA NSW Award of Excellence for Gardens — the highest honour in its category — recognising the project’s design excellence and contribution to urban garden-making in Australia.
Once a gated television studio site closed to the public for over 60 years, NINE has been reimagined as a landscape-led residential precinct in Willoughby, developed by Mirvac with architecture by CHROFI. The project places 6,500 square metres of public open space at the heart of the community, using landscape to integrate ecology, heritage, and public life.
“NINE demonstrates how we can use landscape as a powerful tool to connect people, place and nature,” said Philip Coxall, McGregor Coxall’s Chairman and Director of Design. “Our approach was about more than just aesthetics — it’s about creating habitat corridors, microclimates, and moments of privacy and connection that shape how people live together.”
The AILA jury praised the garden’s refined material palette, ecological grounding, and the way it negotiates the site’s dramatic 11-metre level change. A recent article in The Age also highlighted how the project’s layered planting strategy provides privacy, biodiversity, and cooling — with Coxall noting: “This site is part of a corridor of movement for birds and other wildlife, it’s incredibly important.”
The award recognises the collaborative efforts of McGregor Coxall, CHROFI, and Mirvac in creating a benchmark for future high-density developments — one where public space, community connection, and nature are central.
