A New Creative Life For A Subiaco Office From The 1970s

A former 1970s office in Subiaco has been reworked as a flexible creative hub, retaining the character of its original shell while introducing the adaptability expected of a contemporary workplace. The project responds to a familiar Perth condition: modest commercial buildings with good bones, generous floor plates and a strong relationship to the street, but interiors that no longer suit the way design practices work.

Rather than erase the building’s past, the refurbishment uses its existing structure as the basis for a more open and collaborative workplace. Shared studios, quiet rooms, meeting spaces and informal gathering areas now sit within a connected plan, giving architects, makers and creative businesses room to work independently while remaining part of a wider professional community.

Reading The Existing Building

The office carried many of the signatures associated with late twentieth-century commercial architecture: a robust structural grid, broad windows, practical circulation and a pragmatic material palette. These elements were not treated as obstacles to be concealed. They became the starting points for a fit-out that gives the building a renewed identity without making it feel newly manufactured.

The design team retained the most useful portions of the existing fabric, including the primary slab, structural columns and selected services. This approach reduced unnecessary demolition and kept the intervention focused. In Perth, where construction costs and lead times can shift quickly, making the most of an existing commercial shell is both an environmental decision and a sensible commercial one.

The resulting interior has a sense of calm efficiency. Original concrete and painted surfaces provide a slightly weathered backdrop, while new joinery introduces warmth and order. The contrast is deliberate: the building feels established, but the workplace feels ready to change. That balance is particularly valuable for small practices, freelancers and project-based teams whose spatial needs can alter from one month to the next.

A Workplace Designed To Shift

Flexibility is expressed through a series of spaces rather than a single open-plan room. Desks occupy the larger studio areas, while enclosed meeting rooms, focus booths and shared project tables support different modes of concentration. Sliding partitions and movable furniture allow teams to expand around a workshop, presentation or deadline, then return the space to everyday use.

The arrangement avoids the familiar weaknesses of open-plan offices, where noise, glare and constant movement can make sustained work difficult. Acoustic surfaces are integrated into ceilings, wall panels and upholstered elements, giving the workplace a softer sound profile. Curtains and screens can provide privacy without creating permanent barriers between colleagues.

A central communal zone anchors the plan. It functions as a kitchen, informal meeting point and break-out area, with enough room for a quick coffee, a client conversation or an after-hours gathering. This is the kind of space that reflects how Perth’s creative studios often operate: work and social life overlap, but the setting needs to support both without feeling like a hospitality venue.

The office is also prepared for hybrid work. Video calls can take place in smaller rooms with controlled lighting and acoustic separation, while shared project areas provide a place for teams to pin up drawings, review samples and work through physical material. The result is a workplace that accommodates screen-based production without losing the tactile habits of design practice.

Material Continuity And Local Character

The palette is restrained, allowing texture and proportion to carry much of the visual interest. Warm timber veneer, powder-coated metal, textured fabrics and muted mineral tones sit alongside the existing concrete and masonry. These finishes avoid the polished corporate look that can make a refurbished office feel interchangeable with any other commercial fit-out.

Colour is used selectively to identify thresholds and shared functions. A deeper tone may mark a meeting room or service area, while lighter surfaces extend daylight through the central workplace. This strategy keeps the visual field coherent while helping people understand the plan intuitively. In a building with a relatively straightforward structure, small shifts in colour and material can do a surprising amount of organisational work.

The connection to Western Australia is subtle rather than literal. The palette recalls the dry brightness of Perth without relying on overt references to the coast or bushland. Tactile surfaces and earthy colours create a grounded atmosphere suited to the local climate, while durable finishes acknowledge the wear that comes with a busy studio and frequent visitors.

That sense of practical warmth links the project to a broader Australian interest in interiors that feel useful, adaptable and emotionally legible. It also sits comfortably within the social rhythm of Subiaco, where independent businesses, established commercial buildings, cafés and residential streets exist within a compact walkable area.

Light, Planting And The Everyday Ritual

Daylight was treated as a workplace resource rather than a decorative feature. Existing windows remain central to the experience of the office, with workstations and shared tables positioned to benefit from natural light. Glazing is balanced with task lighting and glare control, an important consideration in Perth’s bright summers when unfiltered sunlight can quickly make a workplace uncomfortable.

Planting is concentrated around arrival points, communal areas and selected work zones. The greenery helps soften the harder architecture, improves visual relief and creates a gentle distinction between public and private parts of the office. It is part of a wider movement towards interiors that support wellbeing through daylight, natural textures and contact with living systems. Contemporary’s coverage of biophilic apartment design reflects how this thinking is influencing projects across Perth, from residential developments to commercial workplaces.

Plants are selected for their ability to cope with indoor conditions and periods of limited attention, rather than being treated as disposable styling. Their placement also supports the rhythm of the day. A planted edge can give someone a moment of visual pause between meetings, while a cluster near the kitchen makes the communal area feel more generous and settled.

The fit-out recognises that wellbeing is shaped by small routines. Good daylight, a comfortable chair, a clear place to put materials and the ability to step away from a screen all contribute to a workplace that people can use for a full day. These details matter in a city where long commutes from the northern and southern suburbs can make the quality of time spent at work especially significant.

A Hub For The Design Community

The refurbishment is significant because it treats the office as more than a container for desks. Its shared areas can support talks, material presentations, collaborative workshops and informal industry gatherings, making the building part of Subiaco’s wider creative network. A flexible workplace can become an active address for exchange, particularly when its public-facing spaces are considered from the beginning.

This openness reflects the way Australia’s design industry is organised. Small architecture and interior practices often work alongside independent makers, developers, photographers, fabricators and suppliers, moving between disciplines as projects evolve. A hub that can host several kinds of activity supports those relationships without requiring a large institutional venue.

The office’s adaptable rooms also make it suitable for events that shift in scale. A morning review might use a single meeting room, while an evening presentation could extend into the studio and communal area. For a local design audience, that versatility offers a more natural setting for conversation than a formal conference hall. It creates room for the practical, social side of the profession, from discussing a new material to catching up over a drink after a long week.

That spirit connects with Contemporary’s own role in the local scene, including the Form Wrap Party, where design coverage and industry connection meet. The refurbished office belongs to the same ecosystem: a place where ideas are developed, displayed and shared, rather than simply finished behind closed doors.

The success of the project lies in its refusal to overstate the transformation. The 1970s building has not been turned into a themed relic or a glossy start-up interior. Its structure, daylight and age remain visible, while new layers make it more comfortable, inclusive and capable of change. It is a measured example of adaptive reuse in Subiaco, showing how an existing workplace can support contemporary creative life through careful planning and a clear sense of place.

Explore the project as a case study in practical reuse, material restraint and flexible workplace design, and follow Contemporary for more stories from Western Australia’s architecture and interiors community.