PROJECT DETAILS
LOCATION: 1-21 Robert St, Collingwood VIC
CLIENT: Lovell Chen
COMMENCEMENT DATE: October 2014
COMPLETED: September 2015
HBS Group was contracted to perform restoration of all four remaining historical buildings with the purpose of converting the industrial buildings into modern apartment spaces.
HIGHLIGHTS/SCOPE OF WORKS:
- Demolition and removal of multiple, non-original modifications to the structures. Rebuild missing or damaged sections to all buildings using over 30,000 rare salvaged Hawthorn bricks laid in traditional English Bond pattern with lime-putty mortar. Removal and repointing of 5000 lineal metres of brickwork and bluestone.
- The rebuilding of ornate archways, quoining and corbelling, creating openings, and structural-remediation works tying new structures to the old.
- Over 20 double-hung sash windows refurbished and 80 made new in the traditional design, using high-performance double-glazing units to meet the required environmental standards.
- Multiple bluestone sills carved to replace severely damaged and missing pieces. Where possible, skilled stonemasons saved existing cracked and chipped sills using epoxy repair methods.
- The cellar building’s roof stripped of its original corrugated sheeting and guttering. Reusing the original trusses, only replacing new battens and gutter boards to facilitate the re-sheeting and new boxed gutter.
- The wrought-iron-framed mansard roof on the Brew Tower completely stripped of slate, and timber lining of boards and rafters; rebuilt using period-specific Oregon timber utilising carpentry methods dating back a century.
- The upper louvres were either repaired and sections replaced and the curved torus remade. Roofing was then expertly clad in Welsh-sourced slate and hand-moulded lead flashings and ridge core rolls installed by specialist heritage lead workers brought down from NSW exclusively for this project.
- The dilapidated balustrading to the Widows Walk was carefully dismantled, cleaned, repaired and replaced.
- The cantilevered Brew Tower cornice required 1.8-metre deep pieces of Mintaro slate sourced from South Australia to be replaced in situ without disturbing the parapet above.
- Ornate clay corbels, re-cast in pigmented coloured concrete.
- Original timber stable doors measuring 5.4 metres tall and 6 metres wide were handmade and installed on the original frame and hinge.
- Cast-iron rainwater heads and downpipes recast and installed.
