Whitehorse Road, Blackburn, is not only a busy thoroughfare, but also a strip burgeoning with signage. Literally each building is beckoning for attention, with advertisements competing for drivers' attention. So when it came to developing a prominent corner site, the architects, Room 11, together with developers Zero Nine, took a different approach.
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The two-level building, built in the 1940s, offered "good bones" if not the latest in contemporary design. There was a rabbit warren of rooms used as offices on the first floor and the ground floor must have been used as a call centre.
"Our clients [Zero Nine] wanted a design that caught the attention of motorists. But they didn't want something that just screamed for attention," says Aaron Roberts, creative director for Room 11 and one of four directors.
"There's a 'sea' of signage along this road," he says.
Rather than take a bold and brash approach, like the neighbouring signs, Room 11 created a "veil" of ironbark battens around the building, separated by a mere 50 millimetres. And to make the original building appear recessive behind these battens, the bricks were painted a charcoal grey. This treatment could have resulted in a fairly static result.
"The idea was to create a design that was more animated, not quite like the signs, but through the language of architecture," Roberts says.
A simple technique, such as painting the sides of each batten a turquoise green, illuminates the building, particularly as motorists, or even pedestrians, pass by.
"It has a slight moray effect. And at night, when the lights are on, the building appears like a lantern."
While the "bones" of the original building were retained, Room 11 created several apertures, including a new entrance framed by a fine steel canopy. Some of the windows, particularly those on the first floor, were also changed, with steel-like fins opening to the street.
"In a sense, these fins are like street signs, but considerably more demure," Roberts says.
Ground level is now one large open space. Subtle delineations come through the materials used. One part of the showroom, for example, features timber floors and a timber-lined ceiling. The greater portion of the space has concrete floors and white plaster walls. This allows the sculptural staircase, clad in Formply, to be the centrepiece.
The first floor was also reworked, removing the rudimentary partitions and replacing these with one continuous space for workstations, together with one enclosed glass office for meetings. And although the space is simple, it is oriented to a generous northern deck via glass sliding doors.
"We didn't want to create a huge design statement. It's more about creating interest and bringing in as much natural light as possible," says Roberts, who used Formply on walls to accentuate the sculptural timber and laminate workstations.
Roberts has a saying that's often used by architects. It's that "architecture should create a void rather than simply try and fill it".
"From the start, we didn't want to compete with all the signage. It's an extremely busy road and this site needed a quieter response," Roberts says.
And although it wasn't intentional to vie for attention, motorists, as well as those passing by on foot, are now drawn to this corner site.
