[+] Art Nouveau: An Electric Substation’s Third Life

From 100-year-old “unloved” buildings to a go-to event space in Sydney’s upcoming SXSW Festival, adaptive reuse is gaining traction in all the right places. Sydney construction firm Built acquired 99-year leases on Substation No. 146 and Shelley’s Warehouse on Clarence Street in the heart of the CBD and constructed its own headquarters cantilevered above the heritage sites. The feats of engineering required teams from Built, heritage architects FJCstudio and interior design by YSG Studio to collaborate on the fine-grain detail of blending the future and the past. The Australian-owned construction and development firm recently inked a cultural partnership with the City of Sydney to create a new affordable cultural precinct across the ground and subterranean levels of the two heritage buildings. Built development director Jono Cottee says the adaptive reuse of the former industrial buildings blends the new with the old and a good example of “true sustainability”. “The buildings are more than 100-years-old. They worked hard as industrial infrastructure in their first life, sat vacant for their second life, and now will spend their third life as commercial offices and event space,” he says. “The act of true sustainability is using building materials and design to create a building that’s around for 200 years, buildings that last.” ▲ The heritage adaptive reuse project required Built to excavate 12m underneath the site to create underpinning for the cantilevered commercial tower above. The FJCstudio-designed building above at 183-185 Clarence Street was completed a few years ago, while the reinvigoration of the heritage spaces is due to be completed in October when a SXSW event takes over the space. Engineering feats to deliver heritage space The heritage transformation preserved the 12m-high ceilings, ornate windows and a gantry crane. The new Machine Hall will feature multiple spaces, including a licenced cafe, an expansive event space and a speakeasy private members club with a view to hosting events, art exhibitions and fashion shows, and designs on offbeat ballet and opera performances. Cottee says the transformation of the heritage building was “key to unlocking the overall development site”. “We recognised the importance of designing the building around the future use of the space. Despite the added complexity, the structure of the seven-level sculptural glass extension was designed to cantilever over the space to ensure the Machine Hall was column-free to allow for maximum flexibility of the new venue,” he says. “These were unloved and disused buildings for more than 30 years. It was an old AC-DC conversion substation because City of Sydney opted to use DC power for a time.” Built used the original timber warehouse floors—which have a unique timber truss detail on the underside—as permanent formwork for the new concrete reinforced slabs. Built had to excavate 12m below the heritage structures to provide structural support for the new 60m office space floating above, introducing concrete plunge piles with ground anchors welded to existing building columns to transfer the loads. The construction firm’s sustainability team worked to improve the sustainability outcomes of the 1909 spirit warehouse and 1930s electrical substation instead of conventional construction. The commercial case for adaptive reuse By retaining as much of the building’s heritage as they could, and reducing the need for new materials, structures and finishes, Built reduced the project’s upfront carbon footprint by 24 per cent. During construction, the site used 100 per cent green power onsite, diverted 90 per cent of waste material from landfill and achieved a 97 per cent recycling rate nearing completion in October. ▲ Adaptive reuse of old buildings in the Sydney CBD is gathering pace—Built constructed its own headquarters and flagship development above the 100-year-old buildings on Clarence Street. Cottee says the incentive to reuse old office buildings in Sydney’s CBD will become more feasible as pressure mounts to achieve net-zero targets. “I think there’s a lot of reasons adaptive reuse in commercial office buildings makes sense—we’ve got an over-supply of old office buildings in the CBDs of Sydney and Melbourne at the moment and a lot of them aren’t sustainable,” he says. “It’s hard to make those office-to-residential projects stack, but taking a D-grade office building and making it a premium offering ... we’re focusing on that in the office sector. “We want to give buildings second and third lives and return the benefit to the community.” Vibrant precincts in the spotlight City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore says the council secured the site as a precinct for “affordable cultural activities”. “The substation vision is to be a unique cultural space in the warehouse district to be used for art exhibitions and a broad range of performances and events together with compatible commercial event space,” Moore said. “Artists and creative producers will be supported to activate the space at a low upfront cost, contributing much-needed affordable infrastructure to the city centre.” The Machine Hall precinct will add to the vibrant CYK laneways (Clarence, York and Kent streets) which Cottee says will put the area on the map as a destination beyond going for a drink. Cottee says Built launched its own to manage the space. It follows a number of other highly successful adaptive reuse projects including the lauded Dexus project Quay Quarter Tower and the Capella Hotel in the former NSW Education Building on Loftus Street. Cottee says it is another step in the transformation of Sydney’s CBD as not just a 9-to-5 work hub, but a vibrant 24-hour economy with compelling cultural precincts and venues. You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. Click here to learn more.

[+] Art Nouveau: An Electric Substation’s Third Life

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