The original building is anchored by large corner rooms and its axial plan pivots around four large courtyards. Corner rooms are adapted into larger public programs, such as a new art gallery and potters workshop- while smaller rooms are converted into studios and workspaces. A light-touch provides upgrades to these spaces without obscuring prior usage histories, and maintaining structural, material and formal qualities throughout.

The adaptation of the original central dining hall sees it become a flexible performance space and provide a 100-seat flat floor venue for the community to programme into. The venue features two new stage curtains, new flexible tiered seating, new lighting rigs with AV functionality and new window shrouds that will provide full black-out as well as improved acoustic performance. A new annexe to this hall introduces a complimentary object into the cloister character of the former asylum building and provides an adaptable communal event space at the heart of the precinct. Its form is the result of two inverted skillion roofs that butterfly outwards from the original veranda roof allowing the existing structure to remain entirely intact. The upper façade of the annexe is clad in textual terracotta panels and custom ceramic tiles produced by the arts community under the tutelage of the local potters.

Read Less