with no redeeming features so we peeled part of the roof away to accommodate new smoking regulations, opened up a wall to engage with the street and moulded a new ceiling to accentuate the repositioning of a new staircase.
The new layout was anchored by rediscovering the origins of the building and exposing its hidden and remaining structure. This framework provided the ‘releasing agent’ for us to realign the floor plan and redesign closer to its inherent spatial bones. The stairs were repositioned into the centre of the venue, which offered a more socially interactive outcome and also left the superseded stair void free for pure spatial connectivity. Our office warmly refers to the stair as ‘Manola’ (after manola blahnik) making obvious reference (if not post modern cheekiness) to the fashion strip of Chapel Street and the stairs appearance as an abstracted high heel shoe. We also tailored the spaces framed by the spatial bones by trimming and synchronising their spatial form focusing on creating a variety of social spaces in line with expected patrons. We ‘coloured’ these spaces with a relatively humble palette of materials and finishes with qualities that we felt had the innate capacity to moderate some the visual ‘noise’ along Chapel Street-almost like a stabilising panacea.
Throughout the duration of the project our intent has been to progressively overlay the site with a reasoned approach. That is to say we have attempted to apply a considered design, one that we would like to think can lay claim to an outcome deserved of its appearance…even on Chapel Street."
‘Temperate’ temperance is best, intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance’
-Mark Twain
|