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Precedents: Australia
AUSTRALIA Woolstores of Brisbane, Victoria and Tasmania.
A riverfront in Australia houses different woolstores of cultural significance, located in different neighborhoods. Three of these precedents of adaptive reuse, converted so as to accomplish higher density, better energy efficiency, and as a cheaper option that new build, will be seen in further detail:
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1. Queensland Primary producers No, 4 Woolstore in Tenerife, Brisbane; 2. Dalgety's Woolstores in Geelong City, Victoria; and, 3. The Old Woolstore Apartments and Hotel, Tasmania.
The woolstore typology was initially a three storey brick and timber warehouse, constructed during the 1930s[51] . Since the very feasibility of the industry of wool making in Australia has been slowly but surely challenged, abandoned woolstores can be seen today.
Challenges faced in the conversion of this kind of typology include navigating around the structural system - the timber grid system is not necessarily conducive to apartment building codes, even with reuse flexibility; the fenestration, too, is not enough, and introducing more may either compromise on structural integrity, or overstep rules set by facades that are protected by heritage acts.
The solutions to these would be to take the reuse process portion by portion, demolishing part of the structural system and reinforcing or reconstructing it. Regarding windows, designs can lean on borrowed light within certain interior spaces, in instances where facades are meant to be kept intact.
Queensland Primary No, 4 Woolstore, Teneriffe, Brisbane
While keeping the same materials as untouched and original as possible, there are some cases where changes must be made. This occurred with the Queensland project, where the multicolored bricks were unable to be completely saved. Therefore, similar materials were sourced when reconstructing.
The woolstore originally consisted of two storeys, but a third storey was added in the adaptive reuse. The materials for the third floor do not match the first and second - the original storeys joints were constructed with joists and beams. For the third storey now, however, Oregon Pine is being used.
The reuse has converted the woolstore into mixed-use, with the ground and first floors having been changed into offices. Apartments are on the last floor, set
back from the road border below in order to give precedence to the path’s historic importance.
The building has a courtyard introduced into it, which allows the deep plan to have access to light that spreads around the places in the building where light would otherwise not reach.
The result of such conversion has led to renewed economic life and activity in the Tenerife district. With new residents, comes new clientele, and so need for new needs to be fulfilled where there were no residents before. Combined with the nearby public transit stop, the district began to attract new ‘third’ places - coffee shops have begun to pop up, especially in the storefronts of many other reused woolstores as well, giving the streets and people new destinations and moments of experience.
Dalgety's Woolstores in Geelong City, Victoria
The Department of Planning set out rules for what should and should not be kept throughout any possible conversion of the Dalgety’s woolstore. The list they set out of what should be preserved was as follows:
● Window and door lintels, ● Pipes in the roof, for rainwater ● External walls of red brick ● Parapet walls ● The sign that proclaimed, ‘Dalgety Company Limited’
Eventually, Deakin University moved to repurpose the woolstore to include it in its campus. MacGlashan Everist ended up being the architects of this conversion, and the design laid out took into consideration the factors of:
1. Urban connection, 2. Connection between old and new (structure) 3. Higher academic typology
The challenges faced by this Victoria woolstore are similar to those of the Brisbane one, namely:
● Structural arrangement and integrity, and ● The deep plan vs. lack of ability to add fenestration.
Since reuse of the woolstore meant fulfilling the above mentioned requirement of retaining the brick exterior to the maximum extent, and there was no means of adding fenestration with this requirement, an atrium was the next choice - a void which would open up the volume of the building, connect spaces and provide daylight.
The original building construction included 4 storeys - the new design will preserve all storeys in some areas of the building, while removing 3 floors in some areas (this will allow an atrium to be formed). Structurally, this was accomplished by removing the three lower floors, while the top floor was used as scaffolding for roof refurbishment.
[52]
The results of the conversion of the Dalgety woolstores resemble those of the Tenerife conversion; life has been breathed back into the part of the city that was being neglected before. With new clientele in the district, more social and economic growth has occurred along the waterfront where the woolstore resides.
The Old Woolstore Apartments and Hotel, Tasmania
This particular woolstore in Tasmania itself has a history of internal adaptation initially built in the 19th century as shanty housing, it was converted to wool manufacture and treatment in the 20th century, and went on to be used for different agricultural uses as well.
In addition to the list of what was supposed to be kept intact for the other 2 buildings, the woolstore in Tasmania was also required to keep its double doors, as they were of a unique design.
A difference between the other conversions discussed in Australia, and this one, is that the roof already had skylights, and so no refurbishment or removal of floors were needed, since natural light was already entering the spaces through the original design.
It can be seen that in each of these adaptive reuses of woolstores on waterfronts in Australia, economic value has been added - not only to the buildings themselves, but also their surrounding districts. Additionally, it was attempted and (succeeded) to conserve the exterior as much as possible. The structure was also kept relatively intact with regards to the span, beams and so forth. This leads to the conclusion that simply changing the primary use of a building can reinvent the social and economical life of an entire neighborhood, improving the quality of several lives, and providing many new job opportunities for people.
