CarriageWorks Interior. Photograph by Michael Nicholson.

  • Client ::

    • NSW Ministry of the Arts

  • Location ::

    • Redfern, NSW

  • Completed ::

    • 2006

  • Team ::

    • Tim Greer, Julie Mackenzie, Jeremy Hughes, Brian Zulaikha, John Chesterman, Bettina Siegmund, Trina Day, Roger O'Sullivan, Vanessa Vorster, Amelia Holliday, Christian Williams

  • Awards ::

    • 2009 International Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum and the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design Studies. 2008 AIA National Lachlan Macquarie Award for Heritage. 2008 Overall Winner, Idea 08 Interior Design Excellence Awards. 2008 Best Institutional Interior, Idea 08 Interior Design Excellence Awards. 2008 AIA NSW Greenway Award for Heritage. 2008 AIA NSW Award for Public Architecture. 2008 Australian Property Institute, Officer of the Valuer General Heritage Award / 2008 Energy Australia National Trust Heritage Award for Adaptive Reuse, Corporate/Government. 2008 Design Institute of Australia Interior Design Awards, Commendation Public Institutional Interior

Project Description::

CarriageWorks is a new home for contemporary arts in Sydney. Developed by the NSW State Government through Arts NSW, the former 1888 Carriage Workshops building at Eveleigh has been transformed into an innovative new centre committed to the conception, development and presentation of a wide spectrum of performance. Tonkin Zulaikha Greer’s adaptive reuse of the building as the CarriageWorks Contemporary Arts Centre has embraced the building’s past whilst providing it with a bold new future.

Three fully serviced, flexible theatre spaces – small, medium and large – rehearsal rooms, administrative offices, workshop space and amenities are housed in discrete concrete boxes. These are clearly articulated from the heritage fabric, which retains its patina of age and use and its remaining industrial artefacts. The new forms stand free of the rows of original cast iron columns, creating circulation routes in the interstitial spaces with views through the building. The foyer spans the entire width of the building. The linear entry structures to each of the theatre spaces are like ‘ghosts’ of the carriages that once moved through the space. The front of house is divided by glass doors from the back of house activities, which are located adjacent to the railway tracks.

Bay 17, the large performance space, has been designed for experimental and physical theatre. This required removal of a portion of the original wrought iron framed roof to achieve the briefed height. The new elevated roof echoes the rhythm of the original roof monitors and reads as a glowing beacon. The original trusses have been reused as a sculptural entry structure, located on Wilson Street, to herald the new use.