Project Team

design: Nexus Designs

Suppliers

furniture: Emeco & Coco-Cola, Hay, Philippe Starck, Artek, Mayday, lighting: Flos
vinyl floor: Armstrong Accolade Safe- Ironbark
carpet: Brintons

Photographer: James Geer

The new interior of the MV Sorrento ferry creates an experience of nautical discovery and and refined coastal tourism. Searoad ferries operates a car and passenger ferry running between Sorrento and Queenscliff on Melbourne’s Port Philip Bay, and provides a highly efficient café, retail & bar environment promoting the local food and wine regions. The vessel offers many options to sit and stare dreamily out of the windows at the beautiful coastal scenery, with whale and dolphin spotting creating a unique experience.

The clients brief was to create an interior that would support the new direction of the evolving Searoad Ferries brand. The 61.4 metre Ferry cross Port Phillip Bay hourly, year around. The bay crossing connects Melbourne’s iconic coastal holiday regions, the Mornington Peninsula and the Bellarine Peninsula, linking travellers to Sorrento, Portsea, Queenscliff and the Great Ocean Road.

Nexus wanted to capture and enhance the relaxed emotion of people when they are on the water taking elements from these feelings and feeding these into the design. The traditionally maritime inspired concept focused on soothing colour palettes, simplicity and symmetry in custom detailed joinery and cleverly selected finishes which also echo a fresh Australian aesthetic.

The goal was to capture people imagination and emotion, encourage people to connect to nature, to feel free and dream. The voyage is truly an aspirational experience passing the through the playground of Australia’s rich and famous along the shorelines of Portsea and Sorrento.

The functionality and space planning of the café was absolutely critical and underpinned the entire project. It needed to allow for a variable number of staff servicing coffee and food for the general Port and Starboard areas as well as the Portsea Lounge at the front of the ferry. Nexus studied the existing layout and completely reworked it to be more efficient for staff and more appealing for customers. The menu was also changing away from hot food to fresh sandwiches, wraps and regional food with different requirements for storage and display.

The existing fixed central trunk which houses the male and female facilities, services and life jackets allowed us to divide the vessel into two distinct zones. The Port and Starboard areas respond to different users of the ferry. The Port side of the vessel encourages groups to enjoy and share stories together; ply wood banquette & cafe tables gives a certain Melbourne café feel and allows for the volume required.

The banquette seating has a double function being room dividers for hired functions if required. Starboard is focussed on the coffee collection zone and communal ‘hot desk’ style working zone with on-board news TV’s and Wi-Fi access. Traditional relaxing ferry seating pays tribute to what was the old ferry.

The colour scheme was kept calm. The base layer of finishes was beige on beige laminates on joinery, further layered with more beige in durable vinyl flooring with accents of pale ply wood. Ply wood was selected specifically as a reference to its traditional role as a boat building material, and its practical and light weight properties.

The next layer over the simple, neutral base palette was loose and fixed furniture items selected specifically to enhance the Maritime feeling. The classic, curved birch Artek Stool 60, designed by Alvar Aalto in the 1930’s, were used in combination with ultra hightech polypropylene ‘About a Chair’ by Hay creating a chic contrast against the traditional boatbuilding ply walls.

Custom Axminister Carpet

Brintons is recognised as a powerful creative source stretching the way people think about pattern and colour on the floor. Their ability to combine thoughtful design with experience and technical knowledge allows them to deliver high performance floor coverings.

Brintons



Nexus’ aim was to keep things simple and have a small number of individual items, but with every piece contributing and having something to say. The 111 NAVY chair is an innovative collaboration icon. Originally designed for the US navy in the 40’s, they’ve used the upcycled, post-consumer waste version where each chair is made from 111 recycled PET bottles. In these pristine coastal areas litter is a highly relevant topic.

Sailor stripes have been a nautical signature since the mid -19th century in France and Nexus used them for custom Axminster carpets to celebrate the tradition of sea life. It felt right to have red for the Port and green for the Starboard lounges. Nexus adopted a maritime stripe hierarchy by having a ‘sailor class’ stripe for the Port side, a larger scale stripe for Starboard, and then changing to a strong, masculine pin-stripe in saturated blue and crisp white for the VIP Portsea lounge.

Flos Mayday lights by Konstantin Grcic were another cheeky nautical inspired industrial design feature. Accents of vertical stainless streel trimmings are incorporated into joinery & are a nautical feature throughout.