M&J Builders win national housing award

A Territory builder has taken out a top national housing construction award. Read what got the local company over the line.

A Territory builder has taken out a national honour at one of Australia’s peak construction industry awards.

M&J Builders won the 2024 HIA Australian Specialised Housing title for seven specialty care homes constructed in the Top End - two in Palmerston and five in Katherine.

Built for Somerville Community Services, the specialised housing development was designed for high-dependant Aboriginal occupants.

The development included onsite carers’ quarters, a private onsite hospital and a central common area for occupants to come together.

M&J Builders HIA industry award

The properties were built with Indigenous plantation timber and praised by the HIA judges, who said the project “created a benchmark in the standard of care”.

The judges recognised the “thorough attention to the occupants’ needs”, exceptional execution and delivery and highlighted the project’s “notable level of technical complexity”.

“The builder’s dedication to this project’s design, documentation and construction is evident in the outstanding results.”

Somerville committed $8m to build the seven homes with the Palmerston facility opened in November 2022 and the Katherine properties the following year.

The homes contained bespoke design features including extra-wide halls, large bathrooms and adjustable bench tops.

The Palmerston homes

M&J Builders junior project manager Chloe Attrill was at Cairns Convention Centre to accept the award on the company’s behalf.

“It’s rewarding to get recognised on a national level for something we’re doing in the Northern Territory,” Ms Attrill said. “It’s the highest level of disability accommodation compliance in the Territory.

“They’re incredible houses because they’re not like a sterile environment. It feels like a home. The people that live there can make it a home and it doesn’t feel like a hospital space.”

The Palmerston homes were built on land provided by the NT government.

M+J Builders HIA industry award

At the official opening of the two Palmerston homes in 2022, Somerville chief executive Lawson Broad said the agency had focused on delivering a specialist facility.

“So much of our built environment is simply not designed for people with a physical disability,” Mr Broad said. “It’s rarely thought of as a consideration from something as basic as having doorways and hallways that are wide enough to roll a wheelchair through, to having even surfaces that don’t cause an obstruction to wheelchair travel.

“We’ve provided those services largely in homes provided by the NT government through Territory Housing, but they’re now 40-year-old homes and were never constructed to any kind of disability standard and were modified over the years.

“The opportunities these homes create for residents to live in are truly outstanding.”