Balancing the Street’s history with its future, the project involves one of a series of commercial character building’s undergoing dramatic change in use and investment along Brisbane's James Street.
Negotiating partial demolition and adaptive re-use of a ‘timber and tin’ character shopfront with the requirements of an international flagship retailer, the architectural design is sensitive to the scale and composition of a predominantly single storey character streetscape while contributing to the contemporary crafted masonry and subtropical landscape character of the precinct.
The ground floor's arrangement visually connects the street and rear courtyard landscapes giving a sense of a continuous urban realm through a very deep plan.
While the majority of the new building frontage is recessed from the street in deference to the character building, a ‘peninsula’ display window frames entry, compresses a threshold and provides a dramatic retail display to the site's perpendicular street view from James Street’s ‘centre’.
Images by Christopher Frederick Jones.
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