Current work

Indigo

Flinders Street, Melbourne

Arched leadlight windows and a gilded coffered ceiling beside a stripped-back masonry column, mid-restoration

Architecture and interiors: FRY
Builder: Siji Projects
Stage: On site · completion 2027
Scope: Heritage fit-out · Two apartments · Retained leadlight and ceilings · Landmark city building

The building

A 1927 landmark on Flinders Street

Indigo occupies two apartments inside one of Flinders Street's quiet landmarks. The building was completed in 1927 as the Masonic Building, to a competition-winning design by the architect Joseph Plottel, whose work also includes the St Kilda Synagogue and Footscray Town Hall.

Built for the Masonic Club, the upper floors held the club's rooms behind a run of tall arched windows. Those rooms, and the leadlight windows that light them, now form the two homes we are building.

A row of arched openings beneath a gilded coffered ceiling, with scaffold in place — The original club rooms, with their arched leadlight windows retained and protected through construction

An arched leadlight window with a central crest, framed by stacked timber and a drop saw — The original club rooms, with their arched leadlight windows retained and protected through construction

The work

Restoring the old, building the new within it

Our scope is a full internal fit-out of two apartments, designed by FRY, carried out around heritage fabric that has to be kept. The leadlight windows, the decorative ceilings and the original masonry all stay. Everything new is set out to sit with them, not over them.

New floor structure, services and finishes are being introduced into rooms that were never built as homes. Each junction between the retained fabric and the new work is drawn and agreed before it is built, so the heritage reads clearly and the apartments feel resolved.

New timber floor framing set out across a stripped-back room beneath an exposed ceiling — New floor framing set out beneath the original ceilings, with the fit-out underway across both apartments

The fit-out underway, with scaffold, benches and materials across the open floor — New floor framing set out beneath the original ceilings, with the fit-out underway across both apartments

Inside the two apartments during construction

Why Siji

Built for work exactly like this

Heritage fit-outs reward early coordination and punish guesswork. We engage early, plan the sequence around the fabric that cannot be replaced, and run the whole job on one set of information through Procore and BuildPass, so the client, the design team and the site work from the same picture.

It is the same discipline we bring to every project. Protect the design, resolve the detail once, and deliver two homes that respect the building they sit inside.

Detail notes

Original leadlight windows retained and protected through the works
Decorative coffered ceilings and plaster cornices kept in place
New floor structure introduced within the existing shell
Heritage masonry protected through demolition and fit-out
Two apartments delivered within the former club rooms