An Elemental Series of Spaces – Smart Design Studio by Smart Design Studio
Smart Design Studio’s office presents as a functional, elemental series of spaces. At its most fundamental, it’s a workplace that provides all the basic necessities – desks, meeting areas, kitchen facilities and abundant natural light. This space, however, takes each of these components and dissects them, extracting and examining the essentials with fresh eyes. It also blurs the line between home and work, with the inclusion of an apartment for Creative Director William Smart. The emphasis here is on crafting a positive human experience in the workplace, achieved with generous doses of clever spatial planning and sustainable design principles.
Housed within an original warehouse building in Alexandria, Sydney, Smart Design Studio’s workplace embraces the industrial fabric of the area. Most of the original features were retained, such as the sawtooth roof, delicate trusses and intact façades, but previous additions that damaged the integrity of the building were removed, redesigned and rebuilt. And while the new structures are bold and contemporary, they are highly sympathetic to the existing materiality and form, constructed from basic and durable materials including brick, tiles and galvanised sheeting.
The apartment presents as its own private sanctuary, separate from the working spaces yet at one with the structure. The four arched brick spaces are slightly offset allowing for light and views; slices of sky and greenery can be glimpsed through the gaps in the structures and shards of light move across the room with the progress of the day.
Inside, the space is defined by a large, central workroom surrounded by ancillary areas with meeting rooms above. There’s an abundance of natural light and the material selection is cohesive; terracotta-coloured ceramic tiles stretch out underfoot and the ceiling, walls and joinery are white. Considered spatial planning sees the open and airy workspace framed by four 14-metre-long freestanding joinery units that double as pinboards for architectural sketches, ideas and documentation. Five long desks bring order and rhythm and allow for connection between co-workers, while a Perspex unit at either end houses a collection of study models and materials, bringing further definition and inspiring discussion. Behind the cabinets are the materials library, model workshop, canteen and reception. The parameters here are loosely defined; the forms suggest rather than dictate, and there is a free-flowing energy that connects these various ‘rooms’.
With a goal to achieve a 6-star Green Star rating, environmental considerations have been woven deep into the design. As a carbon neutral building, the studio collects its own water and generates its own power. Ample ventilation, ceiling fans and radiant underfloor heating and cooling ensures a consistent and comfortable temperature with no need for air conditioning, and natural light is plentiful. All materials were selected for their embodied energy and re-use opportunities; rainwater is collected for all non-potable use and 13 new trees and nearly 2,000 drought tolerant plants were planted in the area.
The apartment presents as its own private sanctuary, separate from the working spaces yet at one with the structure. Conceived as four self-supporting brick catenary vaults, the gentle curvature, natural light and neutral colour palette are warm and inviting. All elements of the apartment such as flooring, lighting and joinery are intended to be simple and recessive, and much of the furniture, fixtures and fittings were custom built to complement the industrial aesthetic.
Apart from galvanised roof sheeting running over the vault’s unmortared bricks and a thin layer of concrete, there is no structure other than the bricks themselves. Fanning out across the walls and ceiling and laid with incredible precision, this is an elegant example of a reductive material portraying lightness. The four arched brick spaces are slightly offset allowing for light and views; slices of sky and greenery can be glimpsed through the gaps in the structures and shards of light move across the room with the progress of the day. In offsetting the catenary structures, a series of unique curves has been created, reflective of rolling waves. Each unfurls at a different angle to the next, defining the internal areas of the apartment and creating a sense of momentum.
As a combined workplace and home, this project is the physical realisation of Smart Design Studio’s ambition to explore new territory in design. It has served as an internal prototype to test different technologies, compositions and ideas, and the studio’s hope is to continue to uncover the outcomes and call it home until at least 2050.
