5 Richmond Place (former Royal Blind Asylum Workshops

5 Richmond Place, formerly the Royal Blind Asylum Workshops, was designed by Peddie and Washington Browne and constructed between 1886 and 1888. This three-storey building features an irregular plan and showcases Dutch Renaissance architectural details. It is built from red brick with polished red sandstone dressings and banding, including a sandstone base course, capitalled column mullions for the bipartite windows, chamfered reveals, a moulded band course above the third floor, and a cavetto cornice.

The east elevation, which serves as the entrance, consists of five bays with a three-bay single-storey wing set at an oblique angle to the outer right. It includes a round-arched pend in the bay to the left of centre, replacement two-leaf sliding doors, and bipartite windows on the first and second floors, topped by a crowstepped gable. The ground floor features round-headed bipartite windows in the central and outer left bays, with single windows above on the first and second floors. The outer right bays also have bipartite windows on the first and second floors. The adjoining single-storey wing has a central round-arched gateway with two-leaf boarded doors and small-pane glazing above, along with round-arched windows in the flanking bays.

The north elevation has six bays and includes a single-storey monopitch-roofed wing with skylights that projects at ground level. There are bipartite windows on the first and second floors in the two outer left bays, with a stepped gable above, as well as bipartite windows in the two outer right bays. The central two bays feature single windows on both floors.

To the south, there is a brick gable that adjoins a tenement. The west elevation is connected to earlier workshops and features small-pane fixed casement windows with top hoppers. The building has a green slate roof with terracotta ridging and chimney cans, a ridge ventilator, and cast-iron rainwater goods, along with rooflights on the north side.

The interior was last seen in 2015 and has been subdivided to create student accommodation, including a café area on the ground floor. There is no late 19th-century detailing visible in the interior.