Image Credit : Shannon McGrath
Project Overview
After years of under appreciation, The Stables, located on Alfred Lane, had become a storage facility for the maintenance department of the hospital. The project brief required this heritage building to be revitalized in order to become executive offices for the staff at the Alfred Hospital.
Architects EAT proposed an industrial aesthetic, in line with the building’s historical use and chose a subdued material pallet to showcase the existing features and detailing.
Celebrating the building’s materials was key to the design across the three floors. Weaving steel and glass elements through the floor plate allowed separation but transparency for working spaces. Structural incisions were made to create vertical circulation and entry to each floor. Paint was stripped off to reveal the existing brick and blue stone walls. As layers of paint were revealed, historical swatches of colour became visible which then informed the new material palette. Every moment in the project had to be about precision and detail to reinvent but also protect the building.
The refurbishment of The Stables brought back its former glory and became the new home for 150 administrative staff, providing a new ecosystem for the Alfred personnel and creating new possibilities around work and interaction with colleagues.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Albert Mo - Director
Emma Gauder - Project Architect
Valonia Octavia - Architectural Graduate
Alina Dain - Senior Interior Designer
Project Brief
An extensive adaptive reuse project, Architects EAT reinvented The Stables, an 150 year old building located on the Alfred Hospital site. The freestanding 3 storey building had been largely forgotten over the last century. Located adjacent to patient care facilities, it had the potential to open up critical area in the hospital for expansion, distilling 150 administrative staff from the main building.
The former factory is historically important as the sole surviving element of the extensive red brick buildings constructed behind the main hospital building in the 1920s. This structure incorporates part of an early stone building constructed by the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind where traditional blind trades such as mat, basket and brush making were taught.
Alfred Health identified The Stables as a potential site to accommodate displaced staff. A legacy project, this development work would allow expansion of critical patient services and provide their team a dedicated, secure workplace.
Project Innovation/Need
The Stables is an extensive adaptive reuse project with difficult live site conditions. The project’s aim was to enhance the existing. To do this, Architects EAT sourced traditionally industrial materials such as expanded mesh and reflective metals so that the new elements carried on the building's historical use. Unexpected but familiar incisions to the former factory work to provide public and private spaces. The working parts of the building were celebrated, with solid ducts coloured heritage red and open steel stairs wrapping around the glass lift.
Aspirations to maintain the heritage factory aesthetic were critical. With the building change of use a number of major infrastructure requirements and upgrades were brought into the building. These were strategically designed into the spaces not to be concealed, but rather kept separate from the existing - gently suspended against the building's fabric.
Each floor has been designed for various functions and teams that ensure the operations of the hospital. Whilst the working floor plates have their own spatial identity, consistent use of new materials and the manner in which they are used to exhibit the existing building features remains the priority.
Design Challenge
Being a government project, time, quality and budget were carefully balanced in a complex stakeholder, heritage and client relationship. The workshop process was extensive and thorough. This of course resulted in a project that reflects intense precision and detail.
Planning was a challenge due to the nature of the existing structure of the building. Each floor is designed uniquely for the teams that occupy it. In direct opposition to this idea is the need for dynamic and connected workspaces. Architects EAT ensured inserts were largely reflective or glass, to share light and connect spaces visually to one another. Smaller working areas were created with collaborative hives designed to break up floor plans, providing relief to a traditional open work floor.
The construction process was also unique to this project. Insertions into the building were laboured over to ensure that no existing fabric was damaged. Details were created to hover, suspend of gently abut the heritage building.
Sustainability
Adaptive Reuse projects are inherently sustainable. Reusing an existing building allows architects to design and build less. This was not just a prerequisite for this project; in a Heritage Overlay, the building was not a specifically listed on the Heritage Register. However, great effort was made to retain and upgrade existing features in its current incarnation well beyond what was required from a heritage perspective. EAT saw value in preserving and reusing what the building could offer the project. Ensuring harmony between the old and new became one of the strongest drivers for design decisions.
The building’s original architectural features exhibited elements of natural ventilation with existing steel windows and vents throughout as well as sublime repetition of structure and light filled volumes. Continuation of this passive design was important to the proposal in an attempt to reduce the energy load of the overall building contributing to the overall payback period of the new works over time.
Interior Design - Corporate
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes, aesthetic presentation and functionality. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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