Tribe Studio Architects

Embracing decorative flourishes and pre-modern arrangements, this 1917 apartment building is transformed into a unique and idiosyncratic home away from home for Ascham’s boarders.

Part of a boarding precinct that is determined in its un-institutional character, this new boarding house is part of a precinct linked by landscape and intimate outdoor meeting places. The original 1917 apartment building presented a stately face to the street and a series of dark, ad-hoc accretions to the rear. In its reinvention, the rear becomes the new front, inward facing and welcoming to the boarding precinct and the School.

Carefully maintaining the character and charm of original building, while updating to codes and regulations requires diligence, care and ingenuity. It is all too easy to lose the charm and grace of a rickety old dame like this one. The design respects the decorative language of the building, its pre-modern plan and space-making logic and its tectonic expression. The result is a characterful and idiosyncratic boarding house, with a joyful and energetic interior design and keen connection to landscape and things that grow. Spaces are carefully considered for particularity, memorability and way-finding. This is not an everywhere kind of institution. It is a genuine home away from home for the girls – memorable, gracious and fun.