The Boot Factory, a structurally condemned 1892 industrial building, was transformed through a carefully considered design strategy that retained its original brick walls while replacing the failed interior with a prefabricated Australian hardwood structure.

By linking this building to the adjacent 1990s Mill Hill Centre, the project enabled shared amenities, lifts and services, while supporting the integration of Council functions.

It’s no wonder this project is this year’s Sustainability Awards Interior Design winner, sponsored by GH Commercial.

The Boot Factory now provides a series of flexible spaces for community workshops, exhibitions, and events, capitalising on high ceilings, natural light and ventilation, qualities of the original building that was built before electricity.

The stripped-back Mill Hill Centre accommodates offices, a seniors and community centre, a café, and multipurpose rooms, all enhanced by improved spatial clarity and daylighting.

Together, these buildings form a civic campus that balances functionality, heritage, and environmental performance. Passive strategies, such as natural ventilation, solar control and thermal mass, are supported by geothermal heating and cooling, solar energy, and sustainable landscape elements.

Crucially, the project delivers significant public benefit and operational efficiency without increasing building mass. Material selections, including glue-laminated Australian hardwood, low-VOC finishes, and recycled timber, were guided by longevity and performance.

The precinct demonstrates the value of interior design beyond decoration and aesthetics, to become a vehicle that supports adaptive reuse and heritage renewal, which when done holistically, can meet ambitious environmental targets while supporting long-term civic and cultural use.

The project faced significant challenges in balancing heritage conservation with the delivery of cutting-edge sustainability performance. The Boot Factory’s brick walls, while valuable as historic fabric, were structurally compromised and required complex stabilisation.

Retaining these walls, rather than demolishing and rebuilding, posed technical challenges but significantly reduced embodied carbon. Achieving accessibility without compromising the Boot Factory’s spatial clarity was another major challenge.

Instead of forcing lifts and amenities into the narrow footprint, the design team proposed linking the building to the adjacent Mill Hill Centre, allowing services to be shared across buildings. This creative solution resolved both sustainability and spatial integrity.

Sustainability underpinned every design decision in the Boot Factory project, from heritage conservation and adaptive reuse to energy performance, material selection, and long-term adaptability.

The design embraced circular thinking by retaining and reusing existing building fabric: the original 1890s brick perimeter walls were stabilised using a new structural ring beam and integrated into the new prefabricated timber structure, avoiding demolition and drastically reducing embodied carbon.

The floor system was custom designed to incorporate a lightweight services zone between timber floor planks and a floating floor finish.

This allows for mechanical, electrical, and fire services to be upgraded over time without impacting the architectural expression of the exposed soffit, supporting the building’s long-term adaptability and lifecycle efficiency.

The introduction of a central, ventilated skylight was a deliberate modification to the building’s typology, enhancing natural daylighting and stack-effect ventilation. These passive strategies significantly reduce reliance on mechanical systems.

Geothermal heating and cooling were integrated using 14 bores beneath the adjacent courtyard, an innovative retrofit strategy for a heritage site.

Paired with solar power and passive cross-ventilation, the building now operates with a low energy profile. Fire attenuation screens were developed as a bespoke solution to enable operable windows near site boundaries—balancing heritage expression, ventilation, and compliance.

Recycled hardwood from the original structure was adapted into new front doors, providing a meaningful symbol of reuse while delivering a robust and low-maintenance entry solution.

Together, these modified systems and elements demonstrate that sustainable outcomes can be achieved by adapting (not just specifying) products and materials.

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