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Project Info

POLYGLOT Highly Commended in Architeam Awards 2018; Commercial. Polyglot is not corporate, it is not slick. It is not a polished new-materials-on-wall-ceiling-floor office fitout. Neither is it a normal warehouse conversion; industrial heritage polished up alongside detailed contemporary intervention. Instead it is a true palimpsest, an insertion into a heritage space that through careful zoning and layout of a design parti enhances what is there with what has been added, achieving maximum impact. Polyglot, a not-for-profit children’s theatre company; with ‘children at the heart of our art’. They approached us to help find a suitable site and interpret / extrapolate the brief into compliant grant documentation subsequently approved with a matched-funding model. The Sacred Heart building at Abbotsford Convent was the perfect fit, an alignment of philosophy and values. We helped select a soaring first-floor space with exposed trusses, peeling paint and lost tiles a palimpsest of the former young women’s ward at the convent, complete with decorative metal bars still on the windows. An extraordinary space, light flooding in, with the curiosity of a beautiful pale yellow, teal and lavender screen in one corner and in the other corner pale yellow tiles. We articulated the dichotomy that although a company for children, it was an office for adults; yet we wanted to design a space with a sense of playfulness, wonder and joy. We wanted a design that was also socially-sustainable, with local or Australian-made products sourced wherever possible. The design solution is centred around; the Polypod! A bold curved polycarbonate boardroom pod designed to draw the eye across the space in an optical illusion that transforms the entire tenancy, giving maximum impact. At a more subtle level there is actually a parti of 5 elements; The Heritage Screen, Reading Nook, Co-Lab Tables, Polypod and The Greenery......read more below....

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Project Presentation.

Plan and sketches of the project.