Studio Gram's new home: How Adelaide's award-winning design studio converted a 50-year-old motor repair shop

Apr 27
2 min read

You know when you’ve found the one.

You can’t help but imagine what the future looks like – and it just feels right.

One of Australia’s leading – and multi-award-winning - architecture and interior design practices was casually looking around, playing the field if you will, when it found its match.

Its new home.

“It felt like a space we could truly shape rather than simply occupy,” studio gram director Graham Charbonneau tells Place Journal.

“Its rawness, scale, and adaptability (really stood out).

“It allowed us to have a front door, to belong and contribute to a streetscape, and to be part of a community conversation, and that was very important to us.”

Even after they moved in, they just clicked.

“We were surprised how well the existing layout worked - workspace, office space and storage space,” he explains.

“Our plan layout is a reflection of what was here previously.”

And that was?

A car repair shop.

That’s right, the firm responsible for Adelaide CBD hotspots Fugazzi Bar and Dining Room and Oggi, now call the old Bowden Motor Repairs in the city's inner-north home.

Compelling projects born from the comfort of the familiar and the allure of the unexpected.

To say the project fits right in studio gram’s wheelhouse would be an understatement.

For more than four decades, the family-run Bowden Motor Repairs was a cornerstone of Brompton's blue-collar industrial landscape.

But, now, the roof that once sheltered mechanics diagnosing engine troubles covers designers solving spatial challenges.

The concrete floors that absorbed years of motor oil now ground a space dedicated to thoughtful design discourse.

The industrial doors that once opened for broken-down cars now welcome the community for talks and exhibitions.

But rather than hide the building’s heritage, studio gram has embraced it – that rawness, that robustness, that utilitarian honesty forged in Adelaide's post-war industrial boom.

It’s a history that aligns with the studio’s philosophy “of creating thoughtful, human-centred spaces grounded in clarity, craft, and context”.

“The workshop’s honesty and robustness informed a restrained, utilitarian palette softened by light, timber, and native gardens,” Charbonneau says.

"We had a clear intention, but the building informed how that intention was realised."

Natural timber complements exposed concrete and steel in an ‘industrial but warm’ aesthetic that draws you in – and begins to tell you the 50-year-old story while you’re there.

But, as beautiful as it looks, the reimagining of this place is about giving a new family the right space to build on its own story.

The workspace, for example, can transform from desks to open studio in 10 minutes.

In other words, the party starts at 5.10pm on Fridays.

From work to play – or familiar to unexpected - seamlessly.

“It gives our studio the flexibility and adaptability that we wanted out of this space,” Charbonneau continues.

"A place that supports how we think, work, collaborate, and grow.

"It's a physical expression of our values."