Workshops at Totness, S.A.

Tags: Commercial

We like our buildings to support ideas extra and external to the normal  self-referencing in architecture. These two motor workshop buildings were conceived – and approved – as having black walls, with white and red stripes. The ‘external’ idea was the experience of driving at night in the Adelaide Hills: the white and red stripes referring to edge-of-road marker posts, the long tapering white fascias headlight beams, with the dark ridges of the Hills above.

The owners loved it, but being commercial buildings, not all the tenants wanted black walls, and the darkness has been relegated to the back and sides – you can see fragments in these images. The powerful headlight beams remain, and add a dynamic spirit to this group.