Meet some of the artists, makers, and craftspeople reusing existing materials in creative ways on the Younghusband Woolstore redevelopment, continuing the legacy of historic building assets for another century.
The Younghusband Woolstore is a treasured community asset, patinaed by time and steeped in generations of history. The project comprises a series of large-scale industrial redbrick buildings, built over a period of 60 years from 1901, spanning two blocks and connected by a bluestone laneway. Today, it is a rare and enduring example of Victoria’s industrial agrarian trade, and an exemplar to architects and developers everywhere of the rich and productive potential of working with existing buildings.
“It’s been off limits for a long time,” says Woods Bagot Director Peter Miglis. “It’s got a beautiful laneway in it, and we wanted to open that up, to invite in the Kensington residents who have walked by it for so many years but never been able to enter.”
“For us, Younghusband was an exercise in restraint,” Miglis continues. “It was about touching lightly: reusing where possible, and adding only what was only necessary.”
In its recently completed redevelopment, with architecture led by Woods Bagot, the reuse of existing materials has radically reduced the project’s embodied carbon while retaining the stories of the lives the site has lived. The preservation of the precinct’s industrial heritage extends far beyond just the façade, with salvaged materials recycled and redeployed throughout the project in creative and original ways. Here, we acknowledge the local makers and craftspeople working with existing conditions who have helped to see the site through another century by giving materials another life.
Nails removed from salvaged timber from the Younghusband Woolstore site, stamped 1901. Photo: Nose To Tail
Furnituremakers and joiners, The Timber Trip, have been working with recycled timber since 1994. Founders Sunny Wilder and Nick Coyle are Kensington residents of 20 years and have long been acquainted with Younghusband as a local icon.
Wilder and Coyle were commissioned to craft handrail ledges for the Younghusband public link bridges between the heritage buildings. The timber was collected from the site and taken back to their workshop where it was de-nailed, planed, and stripped, revealing the rich grain of the Douglas Fir timber beneath.
Left to right: Nick Coyle and Sunny Wilder, co-founders of The Timber Trip
“We have never understood the throwaway society and wanted to make an impact through our small business to reduce construction waste,” says Wilder. “At the same time, we want to create quality, heirloom products and revive traditional joinery skills.”
“The Douglas Fir, often referred to as Oregon, that was used on Younghusband would have been shipped over from America or Canada in the early 1900s,” continues Wilder. “The timber would have originated from huge, old growth trees, evidenced in the grain and knots present in the wood.”
Old growth timber can no longer be commercially sourced in Australia for ethical reasons, but it features a richer, more lustrous texture. The salvaged timber was made into 4.5-metre railings, specified by Woods Bagot, using a scarf join to ensure its longevity over time.
“Timber is all about connection to place and time,” continues Wilder. “By working with recycled timbers, we can connect to an earlier period in history, a pre-settlement era. There is something so satisfying about asking timber that has been hiding in a roof or as a floor beam, and planing it back to reveal the grain and colour. You never quite know what’s underneath.”
One of Younghusband’s defining characteristics is the signature factory-style windows, recognisable by their durable steel frames and large glass panes.
For more than fifty years, Kelvin Ryan and the team at Preston-based Skyrange Windows have been dedicated to the near-dying art of hand-crafted steel windows and doors. Using traditional methods and modern technologies, Skyrange produces custom architectural steel windows of superior quality and accuracy.
“Where convenience, mass production, and savings on materials and processes dictate contemporary construction attitudes, our values hold as strong as they did at our foundation in 1970,” says Ryan.
Skyrange uses rescued equipment and tooling from traditional Australian steel window manufacturers. It is this preservation of superior steel window manufacturing equipment that provides the foundation for their manufacturing process today.
Retaining the original windows, Woods Bagot specified the removal of the panes, replacing them with double glazing to improve the building’s thermal performance. On the upper levels, Woods Bagot specified the introduction of new windows to permit more natural light into the space. Skyrange beautifully replicated these with forensic detail in style and in method, recreating the hand-crafted steel windows and doors in the recognisable heritage style.
Steven Bellosguardo is an emerging artist practicing between Narrm/Melbourne and Tarntanya/Adelaide. Operating in mediums like casting and assemblage, Bellosguardo often works with found objects and repurposed materials as a method of conveying history or preserving memory, whether in sculptural installation or refurbishment projects, as on Younghusband. Bellosguardo’s work for the former woolstore included salvaging and restoring antiquated machinery and pastoral paraphernalia, turning these into a public art piece for the Town Square.
“The artwork is a centrepiece, visually striking through its scale and industrial materiality,” says Bellosguardo. “It grounds the history of the building’s original usage as a wool mill right in the heart of the Town Square. It serves as a meeting place, easily identified within the precinct, and aesthetically compliments its surroundings, highlighting and contrasting the new finishes with the old.”
The artwork consists of two large-scale refurbished piston pumps, originating circa 1920, constructed from cast iron, hardened steel, and brass. One component alone weighs around five tonnes, making it a larger-than-life public statement that serves to contextualise the site’s long-eclipsed uses.
“The works offer an insight into the scale of the operation that once was, providing cultural context in its latest form,” says Bellosguardo. “Working with salvaged materials can be a way to historicise, contemporise, and offer an entry point for the viewer.
“The artwork attempts to preserve Younghusband’s identity, the generations of workers contributing to Australia’s export trade,” continues Bellosguardo. “Built at the turn of the 20th century, Younghusband’s rich history is echoed through the artwork in its integration of old and new. It creates an important reminder that as we innovate, we must always acknowledge the past and the foundations we stand upon.”
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Auckland, New Zealand
15 Jan 24