Trading for 130 years, The Transcontinental Hotel is one of Queensland’s longest-standing pubs. In January 2014, The Transcontinental Hotel underwent a contemporary redesign to emphasise its heritage and elegance as well as restoring warmth and atmosphere.

Tasteful upgrades enrich the patron’s experience while bringing back the old-worldly charm; as more than a nod to the history of the building. A great winding staircase stands below stain-glass windows to great you at the entry. Historic brickwork and tiles have now been uncovered, the Juliette balcony emphasised, as well as an upgrade to the system with state of the art AV equipment. The furniture includes bentwood chairs, stools and chesterfield couches. The food and drink menus reflect this marriage of heritage and popular tastes with both classics and contemporary options available.

Jamieson Hay Builders provided the practical knowhow and the problem solving capabilities that reduced both costs and headaches. Perspective Property Styling sourced most of the furniture solutions and Bigfoot signs produced the signage needs.

The size of the hotel was always a concern from the beginning. It had the potential to become a problem, which fortunately it never did.

“We were conservative where possible and used some materials in unconventional and interesting ways to overcome certain obstacles,” said Demetri Conias. “The size of the hotel allowed us to do a rolling renovation. We closed and renovated a section at a time to allow trade to continue throughout. This allowed our customers to slowly adapt to the new space. There were a number of moving targets to consider during this process as we were managing multiple timelines at once.”

Having successfully renovated the Embassy Hotel over a year prior, the owners knew the types of materials that worked well together. Exposed brick, stained timber, dark leather and bare steel were all used in medley with one another. The surprise of uncovering original art-décor tiles forced them to rethink some furniture choices but was definitely a positive surprise.

The redesign focused on the Trans as a credible and established brand and so it was decided to use historically sound colours that personified this heritage such as emerald green, earthy red and off white tiles, aged tan and chocolate furniture and a regal red for spot highlights and branding. All giving off a warm, relaxing environment.

The element that really ties the concept together is the tiles. Each room has it’s ‘own’ tile which embodies their respective personalities. The Craft Bar features original art-deco tiles that were uncovered during the renovation. The 180 degree bar which connects the Craft and Public bars display a smaller black subway tile with off-white grouting. The Public Bar also features emerald green tiles with an ornate ebony black trim. The Dining Hall features a stunning red, brick sized tile that brings a certain energy into its vibrantly lit room.

Lighting was the biggest struggle as the sunlight’s trajectory over the building made it particularly difficult to coordinate light levels for the different times of day. A mixture of dulled filament bulbs for ambience and energy saving LED bulbs to do the heavy lifting, were used.

In addition to the unique aforementioned features the owners adopted a state of the art AV system installed by Smart Audio Home Visual and Acoustic Technologies (AT). Each room is fitted with a 100in projector screen and all possible video and audio inputs. Perfect for presentations, birthday parties, weddings or any function requiring these capabilities. All of the music levels and video outputs are controlled by a central iPad from anywhere in the building.

Acoustic Technologies in conjunction with Smart Home Audio Visual, designed a complete AV and control system that would satisfy the requirements of this new venue.

The newly installed sound system delivers superb even coverage throughout the various zones but also maintains a good degree of separation between the different areas allowing for multiple audio sources to be played across the venue simultaneously.

As the venue has a modern clean look, architectural integration of the AV equipment was a must. As a result the configuration, colour and location of each speaker is specific to the space ensuring minimal visual impact with uncompromised performance.

The Craft and Public Bars benefit from LG04 + LGB01 systems suitable for both daytime background music through to live performers and DJs in the evenings. These bar areas can hold several hundred people which means that ample volume and coverage is essential to cater for the wide range of uses for the space. The Dining Hall and Beer Deck have a sublime ALA and LGB03 system that provides uniform background music throughout the day and evening. These spaces are mainly white with some black furnishings (lighting, fans, architrave etc) which stand as room features, and the speaker colour selection compliments the surrounding decor nicely.

The upstairs functions level benefits from twelve LG07 enclosures evenly distributed throughout the entire level. Unlike the downstairs areas installing subwoofers simply wasn’t an option due to space and cabling restrictions. The LG07s provide stunning clarity and coverage and due to their slim line appearance they don’t intrude on the space at all. These speakers are operated in a full range configuration and have plenty of power to cater for large events with several hundred people in attendance.

Each zone has its own DJ/Band input which allows a performer to setup in just about any part of the venue and have their sound streamed to any or all areas; on top of this there is are 3.5mm jack AV inputs to simplify laptop based presentations as well as connecting iPods etc for functions.

The whole system features a number of remote and local input sources including Foxtel, Sky, DTV, two nightlife music feeds as well as DJ/Band and AV inputs which are available to all five audio zones. To accomplish this task properly advanced signal processing was required which came in the form of a DSP network consisting of a BSS London BLU-100 12×8 central processor along with a BSS BLU-BIB 8 way input expander. The staff have complete control over every zone via a number of wall mounted or roaming iPads located throughout the venue.

Amplification for the new system consists of two MK8175 eight channel amplifiers along with one BLACKBIRD 5K quad channel amplifier. These latest generation multichannel Class D amplifiers are eminently suited to high performance zoned audio applications that require a high degree of fault tolerance but have space restrictions to contend with. Taking only 6RU these three amplifiers have an impressive combined count of 20 channels.