Younghusband

Steeped in more than 120 years of history, the Younghusband Woolstore is one of the few remaining examples of its kind in Victoria. Since its days as an operational woolstore, the building has served sundry purposes, from a costume store for the Australian Ballet to a studio space for grassroots artistic enterprises. One of the main obstacles to adaptively reusing older buildings is the cost associated with compliance with current standards particularly in relation to fire, disability access and earthquake standards, as well as having new insertions feel contemporary yet complementary, so as not to detract from the rich heritage.

City-fringe suburbs like Kensington are becoming increasingly attractive places to live, work, play as available space in the CBD grows scarcer. Woods Bagot has transformed 17,000sqm of former industrial warehouse into an urban mixed-use village comprising commercial workspace, public space and retail. The project was informed by the pillars of “Heritage”, “Community”, and “Sustainability”, and includes the creation of a new Town Square, providing a unique community gathering space, fringed with ground-floor F&B. The site hosts community activations, including monthly makers’ markets, and is highly connected to public transport, poised to service the broader Melbourne community.

Re-lifing existing buildings is one of the most sustainable practices that architects can do. Regenerating old structures opens up underutilised spaces, radically reduces carbon emissions, and preserves emplaced history. Reuse of materials on Younghusband has resulted in an 84% reduction in embodied carbon compared to similar reference buildings (equivalent to 11,335,000kg in carbon savings). Younghusband is fitted with a 330kW rooftop solar array and battery storage to supplement the building’s electrical requirements, and the precinct is entirely carbon neutral. A 50kL rainwater collection tank services landscape irrigation and WC flushing, reducing water use by 25%.

The Younghusband Woolstore is a cherished heritage building that has long serviced the community. Woods Bagot revives and reimagines the old site, which in recent decades, had fallen into disrepair and lain mostly dormant. The new public realm interweaves a variety of public spaces, including existing bluestone laneways and new public gathering spaces. Multiple entry points have been carefully curated to provide connections, inviting public and private collaboration. The large deep floorplates host flexible workplace tenancies, with premium end-of-trip and communal amenities, for a characterful and state-of-the-art workplace. New interventions include modern glass lifts and external link bridges suspended over the bluestone laneway to improve access and add animation within the building. For the architects, the project was about exercising restraint, and celebrating the building’s scars and patina. Today, the Younghusband ghost signage is still plastered across the face of the redbrick building, the decommissioned bale lifts and pastoral paraphernalia documenting a life of uses long eclipsed. Woods Bagot looks at heritage more than a façade: the team extends adaptive reuse to include structures that were once overlooked, in the hope this project will inform newcomers about the history that once took place there.