DX Architect’s recent upgrade to the interiors of a Richmond Warehouse has been featured in The Age newspaper (21-5-2017) titled ‘Buyer be warehouse’ by Jenny Brown
Calling a past century pseudo warehouse “a strange style” is architect Daniel Xuereb’s diplomatic way of understating “the quirky, elaborate, freestanding building” he was recently asked to renovate in Richmond.
Designed by an engineer during the early 1990s as a dwelling for an artist, it had internal brick walls, a 10-metre-high main room, and an industrial-style steel gantry with a steel balustrade painted turquoise.
But that’s only the half of it.
The Richmond residential architect project by DX Architects. Photo: Aaron Pocock Photography
“It also had interesting 1920s-style porthole windows, large faux classical columns and ornate moulding features”.
There is more – internal divisions for the master bedroom were affected by a wall of ’60s-style wooden shutters, and there was a stumpy stone wall partition built of big stones brought from Sydney that looked like remnants of an ancient ruin.
“Interesting,”Xuereb says. “Quite a lot of character … But with all that recycled and very dominant brickwork internally it was a very orange building …Very busy.”
The Richmond renovation by DX Architects. Photo: Aaron Pocock Photography
As well as reworking the layout to make it into a liveable and modern three-bedroom family home, and removing many of the over-the-top features “while keeping the goodies”, Xuereb, director of Richmond’s DX Architects, ramped up the industrial premise by adding another gantry in the apex of the main living space.
“The aluminium metal grate floor allows light to come through a usable surface,” he says. And putting a platform right up in the roof lantern part of the building with its clerestory window surround, “allows a 360-degree view right across Richmond and over to the city, which is great when there are fireworks”.
“It’s a long way up, but it’s fun.”
One wall of the shutters was replaced by vertical cedar boards, part of the original stairwell was kept, part was replaced in another position, the ground floor became engineered oak over the former concrete slab, and the kitchen swapped places so that it now sits in a neat alcove.
The sitting area gained a partial, metal-floored gantry that has space for a settee and desk. “It allowed us to control some of the tremendous volume in the big room.”
What started out as a complicated building “became quite an exciting project because we were able to improve and stylise the spaces for contemporary living while keeping it unique”.
