Horses for Courses

Kerstin Thompson has transformed Victoria Police’s Southbank horse stables for the Victorian College of the Arts with consummate skill in adaptive reuse. It’s the latest in a long line of educational and cultural projects for a multi-dimensional architect with a growing, gender-balanced practice committed to enduring homes and ecological repair. On the face of it, horse stables and artists’ studios are very different beasts. “There’s always that [issue] when you’re using an existing building that was designed for a completely different purpose,” says Kerstin Thompson. “How can you