River Studios

Nestled on the edge of the Maribyrnong River, 41-59 Sims St West Melbourne was transformed and refurbished by Creative Spaces in collaboration with award winning Breathe Architecture in 2010. After sitting vacant for over 20 years, River Studios now holds 63 artist studios, with nearly 80 emerging and established artists working over three levels.

Through a new unprecedented model of development, the City of Melbourne was able to lease the 3000m2 building from the private sector to provide affordable workspace for artists. River Studios is a partnership between the City of Melbourne, Creative Victoria and the owner of the building (Tabilk Nominees). Each party contributed $100,000 towards the building’s refurbishment, which included a lift for disability access.

Building work occurred over a period of 16 weeks. Adaptive re-use of buildings is a sustainable practice that the City of Melbourne actively promotes through its 1200 Buildings program, and as a result the project used recycled materials and prioritised low-cost innovative use of space.

In 2011, River Studios won the Australian Institute of Architecture (VIC) award for Small Projects. Projects in this category were constrained by space or cost restrictions, but had achieved a level of invention, creativity and craftsmanship.