Commercial Design - Villawood NSW - 40,000 sqm site area (2,500sqm workplace and 13,500sqm warehouse)

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Cradle Design was appointed to design the refurbishment of the new Sealy NSW Villawood facility in conjunction with the  Sealy Australia project team. The large-scale project required the additional services of planning and landscape architects,  Place Design Group, along with building service engineers, Norman Disney Young and structural and civil engineers, Northrop Consulting Engenieers. Sealy manufacture all mattresses to order and service each state from their facility, so the brief required a quality 40,000 sqm warehouse to run the company effectively and align with Sealy’s high standards throughout Australia and Asia.

Sealy required around 2000 sqm of new the workplace accommodation to house a showroom, training facilities, meeting rooms, offices, open plan workstation areas, staff amenities and changing rooms, as well as a commercial standard kitchen and breakout areas for sales and manufacturing staff. In addition, the warehouse also needed to have ample space for the storage and manufacture of the mattresses, loading docks, car parking and site/warehouse ancillary support functions.

With the help of builders, Built, the existing workplace accommodation and warehouse buildings where stripped back to the core structure and finishes. Two new courtyards were inserted into the new workplace accommodation commercial design in order to bring daylight into the large single floor plate. The courtyards function as extensions of the meeting, showroom and office facilities that wrap around, providing landscaped breakout and function space in the centre of the facility.

New recessed and on-ground loading docks were introduced to the expansive warehouse facility to maximise Sealy operations. The site underwent major changes including new driveway access from the main street, car parking, emergency service access roads, new landscaping and upgrades to the sites fire hydrant protection system, installed by Holmes Fire and Safety.

Sealy wanted the existing tilt-up concrete panels with an aggregate finish to be retained, along with the exposed steel structures and Sealy standard requirements, which formed the basis of the commercial design and finishes concept. Timber was introduced into the reception and front-of-house areas to soften the pallet.

Photographer: Stefanie Zingsheim