Project Details Polyglot is not corporate, it is not slick. It is not a shiny-cool-new-wall-ceiling-floor office fit out. Neither is it a normal warehouse conversion; curated heritage polished up alongside detailed contemporary intervention. Instead, it is a true palimpsest, an insertion into a heritage space that through careful zoning and layout of a design parti enhances what is there with what has been added, achieving maximum impact on the tightest of budgets.

Polyglot, is a not-for-profit children’s theatre company; with ‘children at the heart of our art’. They approached us to help find a suitable site and interpret/extrapolate the brief into compliant grant documentation subsequently approved with a matched-funding model. The Sacred Heart building at Abbotsford Convent was the perfect fit, an alignment of philosophy and values. We helped select a soaring first-floor space with exposed trusses, peeling paint and lost tiles a palimpsest of the former young women’s ward at the convent, complete with decorative metal bars still on the windows. An extraordinary space, light flooding in, with the curiosity of a beautiful pale yellow, teal and lavender screen in one corner and in the other corner pale yellow tiles. We articulated the dichotomy that although a company for children, it was an office for adults; yet we wanted to design a space with a sense of playfulness, wonder and joy. We wanted a design that was also socially sustainable, with local or Australian-made products sourced wherever possible.

The design solution is centred around; the Polypod! A bold curved polycarbonate boardroom pod designed to draw the eye across the space in an optical illusion that transforms the entire tenancy, giving maximum impact.

• YEAR: 2019
• SITE AREA: 200m2
• LOCATION: Abbotsford Convent
• PHOTOGRAPHY: Shannon McGrath