The Fern: Stay at Redfern’s new no-carbon luxury apartments

With its first guests checking-in over the Queens Birthday long weekend, The Fern serviced apartments are now giving short-term visitors to Sydney the opportunity to experience Passive House apartment living in well-located, luxurious surroundings.

Oliver Steele and Associates originally developed The Fern with the intention of selling each of the 11 units. A soft property market coupled with the rapid development of The Fern’s neighbourhood into a busy extension to the Sydney central business district – the Commonwealth Bank will open its new offices at Eveleigh, with more than 10,000 staff by the end of this year – has inspired a change of tack.

“We’ve partnered with Urban Rest which, a specialist executive letting agency, to make the apartments available to short-stay guests and re-birthed The Fern as serviced apartments,” says Oliver Steele, The Fern’s architect and builder.

Sustainable, comfortable and beautiful

It’s easy to assume that you give up something to live in a sustainable property but that is certainly not true of The Fern. Each apartment features luxury finishes such as stone paving on the balconies, herringbone French oak parquet floors in the living areas and Carrara marble bathrooms.

The kitchens have oak fronted cabinets, Carrara marble benchtops and European appliances. Each apartment includes a dishwasher, laundry facilities, wi-fi broadband, satellite TVs and a hairdryer.

Beautiful furniture and fittings

Oliver Steele has complemented the architecture with personally selected furniture and each apartment is different.

“I’ve furnished each space with a mix of new designer furniture and vintage pieces so it feels like a home – not sterile or hotel-like. There are big leather couches – some are restored Tessa couches – and Eames style tables. The building itself has such a strong presence and I didn’t want the furniture to detract from that by being too bland.”

The result is a stylish and “architectural” with rich interiors, but still comfortable and homey, softened by green planting on the balconies, such as star jasmine, devil’s ivy, jade, agave and climbing guinea flower, plus a 15 metre living wall that makes the middle of the building feel like a rainforest valley.

The attention to detail goes as far as Oliver’s choice of wine glasses, plates and cutlery, Australian designed Füri knives, and Scanpan cookware.

“I didn’t want our guests to walk into these beautiful spaces and feel let-down when they opened the kitchen cupboards.”

The Passive House difference

Passive House design started in Europe (Passivehaus) and is catching-on worldwide as a way of creating comfortable buildings in any kind of environment, with minimal heating or cooling, and lots of fresh air.

It involves totally sealing the external surface of the building in a vapour permeable membrane with no metal fixings going through it.

High quality windows and doors let in light and air, but the main source of ventilation is HRV (heat recovery ventilation), which allows fresh air in and pushes out stale air out, without the indoor temperature changing. This means the interior stays cool in summer, and warm in winter.

The result, at The Fern, is the fresh-feeling pleasant indoor environment can be maintained with a small airconditioner.  A huge bonus is there is no carbon pollution to the atmosphere – it’s all powered by the solar panels on The Fern’s roof.

A location that’s hard to beat

The Fern is at 7 Wyndham Street, Redfern, in Sydney’s hipster heartland, a short walk from cafes, restaurants and entertainment. It is a three minute walk from the Australian Technology Park, five minutes from Redfern Station – which has access to all six of Sydney’s train lines – and just three minutes from the new Waterloo station on Sydney’s new metro line to be opened in 2024. There is even a bus stop out the front.

Both the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney are within 20-minutes walk, and Hyde Park and Darling Harbour are both just 30 minutes away.

Available to let now

There are currently two apartments (Four and Seven) are available for rent in The Fern, with three more within a week or two, and the remaining six by the end of July.

For more information, visit The Fern’s website or check the apartments out on Urban Rest.