Bohemian legacy: The Hat Factory

Modest buildings occasionally take on a significance far greater than their footprint. The Hat Factory in Sydney’s Newtown is certainly one of those. While its box form was utilitarian, it became a famous symbol of squatters’ rights when it was sold as a derelict building in 2014.

It had originally been built as a two-storey hat factory and was later used as a printery before becoming a well-known squat for the 13 years before its sale. It became a centre for the movement against the sale of heritage public housing in Sydney’s Rocks area and for squatters’ rights generally. It featured a central shared kitchen, library, bike repair shop and gig space. As the inner west of Sydney (including Newtown) gentrified, a large blackboard on the building addressed concerns and reminded passers-by of the changing nature of the once-bohemian suburb.

After the final riotous eviction of the squatters three months before the sale (involving some 50 police), the building was slathered in graffiti, noting “Be careful what you bid for” and “Yuppies, developers, investors beware,” and the agent’s premises across town were vandalized and graffitied. Agitators continued to glue all the locks of the building regularly for a long time after the sale.

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The second-floor roof form is barely visible from the streetscape and the original boundary wall has been stripped back to bare stone.

Image: Anthony Basheer

The architect for the reworking, Welsh and Major, was conscious that the legacy of the building made the project a significant one and its work has shown a strong yet delicate hand. The shell was originally rendered, covered by layers of graffiti, and this has largely been retained, along with the original openings. Inside it is tidy but raw. The street base has been painted with a dark grey anti-graffiti paint (which is still tagged frequently). Unstable sections of the masonry upper parapet and walls were removed and replaced with a lighter, luminous layer of insulated polycarbonate wall to shield the discreet addition of a second floor set back beyond an apron of balconies. Its roof form is barely visible from any of the streetscape.

The building is divided into two apartments that almost mirror one another (driven by the two original loading bays, one at each end of the building). The smaller, south-western apartment has very high ceilings at street level (as a function of the slope of the street), with a mixed-use parking and working space downstairs, plus a bathroom and two bedrooms that can be closed off or opened to form one big space. A simple concrete slab floor, partition walls made of oriented strand board and the steel beams of the first floor’s braced timber framing give a rich palette of materials to this ground-floor space.

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The kitchen finishes are rich and robust, with stainless-steel used in the tenanted apartment and Carrara marble in the owner-occupied dwelling.

Image: Anthony Basheer

The dominant visual feature of both apartments is the original stone boundary wall to the sides and rear, stripped back to bare stone internally and left as a richly textured surface in rear courtyards. All the spaces in the building face these courtyards – bedrooms can be opened to them, bathrooms use them for cross-ventilation, and the side of each stairwell is bathed in the soft light that falls into the rear outdoor spaces. The higher part of the boundary wall has carefully patched brickwork in a staggered array, adding more texture to the stone, moss, ferns and graffiti.

The stairs in both apartments are raw steel, with folded treads, rod supports and frame, and mild steel mesh infill balustrades. Slim rods attach to the boundary walls for stability. Each stair is top-lit by skylights and the stone walls on two sides are visible under and through the stairs – with some graffiti judiciously retained. In the north-eastern apartment, which faces the adjacent Hollis Park, the same mesh appears over the polycarbonate as an external protective screen. The balustrades, glazing and building frame are all left as a galvanized finish.

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Like all of the spaces in the building, the stairs make use of the soft light from the rear courtyards.

Image: Anthony Basheer

The first floor of the south-western apartment has a kitchen bench along a single wall, with a discreet, dark-melamine pantry and bright, white-tiled laundry behind it. Some street-facing openings are windows; some are French doors, with a flat balustrade in line with the external render. The second floor has a bathroom and main bedroom, with sliding doors that create an open corner to a large terrace. This has a tidy barbecue store and expansive views over the surrounding roofscape of the leafy suburb. The larger, north-eastern apartment is loosely a mirror of this plan, with an added WC at the kitchen and living level and a large bay window facing the park.

The finishes of the kitchens are rich and robust – timber-veneered cabinets (with high-level doors in fibre-cement sheet), an integrated fridge and a discreet slotted airconditioning vent. The south- western apartment has a stainless-steel benchtop and splashback (for robust tenant use), while the north-eastern, owner-occupied kitchen is fitted with a Carrara marble benchtop and splashback.

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The renovated spaces give the impression of a secluded eyrie, despite the rather exposed corner site.

Image: Anthony Basheer

The polycarbonate “hat” on the new building is especially effective in the north-eastern apartment as the top of the old wall becomes a dado in the living space, with the luminous new wall above. This brings in an even quality of light, while offering a sense of privacy on an otherwise very exposed corner site. The choice of material is similarly inspired on the bedroom and balcony level, giving the impression of a secluded eyrie.

The gradation of internal materials and finishes, from raw and rugged at street level to calm and white-plasterboard-mute at roof level, is a complex and skilled manipulation by the architects. It has been said of adaptive re-use projects, originally by the Burra Charter, that one should do “as much as necessary” and “as little as possible.” This project is an impeccable example of that.

Ironically, for all the squatters’ fears of overdevelopment for a quick sale, the building is occupied by clients who have no intention of selling or moving. It was not a fast development, but one that has required profound effort and tenacity from the architects, the clients and all others who worked on the site.

The resulting building still punches above its weight. It retains a significance beyond its scale, as an exemplary gentle reworking of a famous landmark, carrying its history and revealing all its raw beauty to its occupants and to the general public.