Craft’d Grounds

Client

Private

Completion

2021

Location

Albion, Brisbane

Traditional Custodians of The Land

Yuggera and Turrbal people

About the project

Craft’d Grounds is a thriving artisan brewery, food and lifestyle destination. Designed to host an eclectic mix of tenancies, Craft’d Grounds enlivens an emerging precinct with spaces that celebrate locally sourced products and produce. The architectural design is a sustainable exemplar for building reuse, reflecting the ethos of its owner and considering financial viability. The existing significant steel portal framed structure with its distinctive sawtooth roofscape is retained, whilst many of the intrusive later additions that were incrementally added over time, have been removed with layers carefully peeled back to reveal the industrial story of the building beneath. The new interventions are subservient to the former industrial building, revealing the existing column grid whilst maximising transparency from the street, to proudly highlight the internal activities.

Design Strategy

The design response was based on shared tenancy spaces and highlighting the existing building structure to create a local identity. The creation of new laneways significantly enhances the public space’s permeability and interactivity. Other design drivers included:

Providing unique retail touch points within a cohesive single identity
Enabling the public to engage with increased shop frontages through the laneway insertions
Celebrating the existing steel structure by refinishing it and ensuring new elements are subservient to the existing column grid
Maximising transparency from the street to highlight the internal activities.

Sustainability

The design aims to be “a sustainable exemplar for building reuse” reflecting the ethos of its new owner and taking into account financial considerations. Demolition of the entire building would be costly and damaging to the environment due to the increase of waste and energy spent to prepare new building materials. A conscious decision was made to preserve at least the existing basic structure and attempt to reuse the raw materials from the demolition of the remainder of the building.