The Galley Room is located in the Waterside Hotel, which has a strong heritage with the docks and when the Yarra was used to transport goods into the city. The galley is traditionally found deep in the heart of the ship, where you’ll find the kitchen and quite often where the crew would meet to drink, snack to catch up for a chat.
The venue is owned by The Waterside Group led by GM Stuart Wigney who also own The Hotel Brighton, which is about to be renovated and relaunched.
The aim was to create a comfortable, world-class, premiere cocktail bar and lounge.
Because the space is sandwiched in the middle level of a 150 year old pub, the structural work was significant. This included aspects like acoustics and retaining as much of the space as possible. Balancing this within the budget combined with all of the style elements of the fit out was at times challenging.
The design was by Iva Foschia from IF Architecture, with assistance from Projects of Imagination, whilst the management and construction was overseen by Trent Alexander from leading hospitality construction company Liquid Lines.
Iva’s biggest challenge was the existing conditions, given that the building is over 100 years old.
”There were a few issues that came up during the construction process that required the design to change to accommodate,” she said. “However there is no real major design impact that is obvious to the patron.”
The existing level 1 interior originally accommodated dormitory style / hotel rooms. Prior to any design work commencing there was considerable demolition works undertaken which saw the removal of all the double solid brick walls that divided the space.
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