Miss Midgley's
Photo: Static Identity
Photo: Static Identity
Mother and daughter team Lisa and Isabella White bring us Miss Midgley’s, a boutique hotel destination in New Farm, Brisbane.
Words: Georgie Ward I Photography: Static Identity
‘ The project was named after Annie Midgley, an artist and teacher who opened a private school in the building in 1905,’ says Isabella White. Photo: Static Identity
Mother and daughter duo, Lisa and Isabella White, bring to life one of Brisbane’s oldest heritage homes, reimagining the 160 year old space into a pretty, picturesque hotel nestled in the heart of New Farm in Brisbane.
Miss Midgley's hotel preserves and celebrates the eccentricity of the building, whilst introducing a fresh touch of contemporary aesthetics and functionality. The project has a pointed focus on detailed and playful design while conserving some astonishing heritage elements.
Built out of Brisbane’s famous ‘tuff stone’, Lisa and Isabella aimed to bring out the peachy, apricot undertones of this stone by painting the building’s exterior with pinks, rusts and browns that amplify the stone’s natural colour.
‘We used Dulux’s Quiet Pink. The colour choice was perfectly harmonious with Brisbane's pink stone, as it didn’t overpower the natural colour palette of the rock,’ says Isabella. The process of selecting the perfect shade was a challenge for the two, they ran multiple Instagram polls to get a census and compared many colour swatches before landing on the final swatch.
Working closely as a team, their different expertise and skill sets meant they could both bring a lot to the table. Lisa, has over 30 years experience as an architect and was on site from dawn til dusk, whereas Isabella ran the website, Instagram and branding aspects back at the office.
Colour extends to the interior spaces. Photo: Static Identity
Bathroom details at Miss Midgley's. Photo: Static Identity
“Design can’t afford to be for the sake of fashion or trend, it has to be a direct response to what is in front of you.”
‘We regularly get comments from the community about how much they love the fence, it sparked lots of conversation online about the role of design in communities,’ says Isabella White. Photo: Static Identity
Bathroom details at Miss Midgley's. Photo: Static Identity
Colour extends to the interior spaces. Photo: Static Identity
The process of selecting the perfect shade was a challenge for the designers, ‘It nearly drove us crazy! We ran several Instagram polls with our group of followers and could reach no consensus!’ says Isabella White. Photo: Courtesy of Miss Midgley’s
Working with a historic, heritage building was both a treat and a struggle for the two designers. Lisa and Isabella share a favourite quote, ‘good architecture is like watching gymnasts in a prison yard’.
Its unpredictable nature as an old building meant new problems with facilities arose throughout the construction process, however forced inventive and creative solutions. Lots of the design and construction had to be resolved on site, ‘it's about walking the line of intervention and preservation,’ says Isabella.
The two storey boutique hotel consists of 5 spacious apartments with a lush tropical garden space that features a pool and sun deck area, perfect for a relaxing get-away.
Miss Midgley’s has a distinctly neighbourhood feel, it’s only a short stroll from Brisbane's most sought after retail, dining and entertainment precincts. It celebrates its own sense of place in the fabric of this historic suburb.
The site's custom Corten steel fencing is a stand-out feature of Miss Midgley’s. ‘Originally, the council asked us to consider a picket timber fence, more in line with traditional construction methods, we proposed laser cutting the pattern of a picket out of a more contemporary material, bringing the building into modernity while ghosting the story of the heritage onto it,’ says Isabella.
The corten material is a modern material that appears aged and rusted, cleverly intertwining the new with the old, echoing the building’s historic journey into modern times.
The two storey boutique hotel consists of 5 spacious apartments with a lush tropical garden space that features a pool and sun deck area. Photo: Static Identity
