Warehouse Offices | Footscray
status: complete
The clients for this warehouse to office conversion were a
collection of geologists, hydro-geologists and environmental
scientists and engineers with qualifications in water pollution
and waste management. Their focus on sustainable
approaches to soil and water treatment is an attitude that we
all wanted to reflect in the fit-out for their office and sub-tenant
space. The hybrid open plan fit-out reaches high levels of
sustainability through the use of materials, construction
techniques and operating systems (such as night time cooling),
and the majority of the fit-out is intended to be re-used
and re-located as part of a stage 2 development for the site.
The workstations are treated as one large custom designed
table, with seats offering various levels of privacy and ability
for teams work scenarios. The desk was designed to be lazer
cut and assembled on site in 2 days, offering little downtime
for staff. All services and individually controlled hydronic
heating panels are run through the desk to each staff member.
Our clients and their subtenants share use of communal
facilities including shared admin, hot desks, meeting rooms,
kitchen, lecture theater and sitting/reading space, with a
log fire for winter. Colours used in the fit-out were selected to
match those in the Munsell Soil Chart (a bible for those in the
business of soil) and the central meeting pod is clad
in recycled cardboard and bracing plywood.
The design for the cladding of this object was to be
representations of geological stratification, which, with the help
of the client, are quite true to form.
