GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

GAFFA Creative Precinct

Project Information/Data

Date: 2018 - 2024
Client: Creative Development/GAFFA Gallery
Location: City of Sydney (Gadigal-Eora)
Supercontext Team: Andrew Daly, Colette Hortle, Ellie Skinner, Eduard Fernandez, Rob Meyerson, Alex Jones
Consultant Team: Weir Phillips Heritage, Cantilever Studio, Centric Engineers, BCA Logic/Jensen Hughes, SGA Fire
Built by: SHEETH Projects
Photography: Hamish McIntosh

281 Clarence St is a state-heritage listed former police station building, designed by then colonial architect James Barnet in the late 1800s. Originally 1 storey, it was subsequently added to by Barnet, and then further again by then government architect Richard Wells in the 1920s. It served as a police station until the mid-1980s when it was sold and converted into a private residence and offices. Since the mid 2000s, 281 Clarence has been the home of the Gaffa Creative Precinct, including maker spaces and an art gallery.

In 2018 Supercontext were engaged to undertake the complete refurbishment of the building which, after 30 years, was in need of upgrade to meet contemporary standards. The project developed further to incorporate a new outdoor roof garden, to be used as an extension of the art gallery as an outdoor garden and exhibition space.

(left) The project involved key heritage restoration considerations, including the revealing of 1880s glazed bricks in what used to function as the police station's original holding cells. Varying from cream to light grey in colour, the glazed brick cells are now occupied, including the atrium, by Gaffa Art Gallery. (Hamish McIntosh)

(above) Culminating in the rooftop extension, the project involved what may be the final vertical extension of this significant heritage asset with a communal roof garden and cantilevered glass awning to provide an outdoor exhibition space, and common-use space for the building occupants. A rare opportunity to contribute to the public life of the city, the building now has a public ground floor and a new room-in-the-city on its rooftop. (Hamish McIntosh)

(right) The third floor terrace is principally associated with the refurbished level 3 commercial space, with a curved, standing seam zinc facade acting as a final 'cornice' capping the building and creating a relationship with the various horizontal bands of the heritage facade to Clarence St. (Hamish McIntosh)

(right) The rooftop is a new room of the city, a partially covered terrace accessible to the general public during gallery events via a new elevator carefully slotted into the existing building.

The project involved the complete refurbishment of the interiors. Stripping back the layers of history in the building, 281 Clarence is a mix of construction types, of periods of construction logics and as more was revealed, more complex interfaces between heritage and intervention have been revealed. The project increasingly required careful consideration of its found state, at once reconnecting with history as much as revealing that history of intervention and strange junctions.