Table of contents for Interior Dec/Feb 2018 in Interior

The ever-so luscious Eat Drink Design Awards have recently been announced. According to the jury panel, the process of selecting the top hospitality interiors in Australia and New Zealand elicited some interesting ideas about the design and build process. According to them, hospitality design in 2017 was marked by a lack of common themes but an overarching sense of ambition: “within the scope of such ambition we saw more genteel and conservative entries, and entries with irony, verve and wit,” wrote the jury. Likewise, some projects showed that when large budgets were not available, artisanal detail took its place. “In the place of budgetary excess, there has been a renewed investment in and commitment to making by hand through thoughtful, artisanal detail,” the jury continued. And it is true, 2017…

Sydney-born Rachael Challinor is bringing international ‘athleisure’ brands to these shores with People Like Us, a shining beacon of freshness and fitness in East Auckland’s Orakei. The interior fit-out was designed by Jessica White of Room by Room and features Yves Klein blue drikolor paint applied to high tubing along the back wall of the dressing rooms. “This creates an almost organic form within the space,” says White. “A dichroic colour application to a high acrylic wall creates an everchanging backdrop. Throughout the day, light and shadow play with this material to reflect a multicolour glow.” According to Challinor, the design of the store brought in a good number of pre-orders before it even opened. “I had so many eager customers walking past the shop as we were hanging up…

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Winner Best Restaurant Design Designer Genesin Studio Location Pennington, South Australia Jury comment — Viet Next Door represents a pinnacle of artisanal crafting and an instance where a great deal of thought has clearly been invested in every detail. It is an impressive and strangely atmospheric interior for all its simplicity. All elements of the interior have been crafted from scratch and exist in delicate suspension with each other, even down to the alignment of the flex and the tension wire supporting the handmade light fittings. Adelaide has a long history of excellent Vietnamese food, and this family-owned business has been taken in a unique and thoughtful direction by its interior. This space is something of a departure from the usual run of familyowned restaurants – it is a place…

Winner Best Identity Design Designer Fabio Ongarato Design Ongarato Design Location Mornington Peninsula, Victoria Jury comment — With overtones and undertones of Donnie Darko hovering inevitably around the design, the identity collateral of Jackalope represents an ambitious and boldly coordinated, highly integrated relationship to the interior and venue it supports. The designers have managed to marshal and occupy multiple channels of attack to create an identity that cascades from supergraphics, environmental wayfinding, door signs and other placards to menus, paper collateral, typography and uniforms. The supergraphics in particular highlight the main building, creating a moment of intensity. As the identity reveals itself through the visitor’s experience, it’s evident there is an overall inventiveness to each layer of the graphics. As a highly integrated, carefully considered overall experience, Jackalope is a…

The sculptural installation Under/standing looms large and strong over Brancott Estate’s grapevines and at the same time, seems right at home there, with the intersecting lines of rust orange Corten steel merging with the linear geometry of the rows of vines. According to Benshetrit, interacting with the installation is integral to capturing its purpose. “The whole meaning of this piece is that you have to literally stand underneath it to understand it.” On site, the designer encouraged the viewers to get under it, to climb it if we dared. The sculpture was fabricated by Auckland’s Design Production and arrived on the vineyard in flat-pack form. After being lifted into the air, the piece almost effortlessly unfolded as it was steered onto its site. “This idea of going from flat to…

ARCHITECT NEEDS An architect himself, with a Ph.D in architecture specialising in the use of digital design tools, Ben runs an online training company, The Institute of Digital Design (IDDA). The Institute provides cutting-edge architectural and design software, giving architects, designers and engineers the skills they need to produce designs at the highest level. Possessing these skills is paramount, says Ben and not only for reasons of proficiency. “These tools allow you to create designs for buildings in new ways – for example, using what we call parametric design principles. Parametric design is essentially visual programming for architects.” These principles essentially allow designers to think of a design as a flexible object rather than a one-off design, so modular designs can be created with a single source of data for…

Winner Best Café Design Designer Ritz&Ghougassian Location Hoppers Crossing, Victoria Jury comment — Morris and Heath is a holistically considered interior, bringing high-end design to Melbourne’s western suburbs. The interior successfully creates its own moment, and its own place, warm and comfortable with its disciplined palette of wood and strategically placed lighting. All is understated, nothing in this interior is extraneous and it is one of the most remarkable outcomes seen among this year’s entrants. The timber panels and battens may not be an original idea, but they have been finely detailed and executed in this application, with such details as the ‘fingertip’ scale of the battens giving tactility and a ‘must touch’ aspect to the interior. The operable screen further multiplies the space – a detail that could have…

Winner Best Installation Design Designer Foolscap Studio Location Barangaroo, New South Wales Jury comment — Noma Australia managed to tread that fine line between representative materiality and realisation that never descends into ‘featurism’ or mawkishness. With a shelf life of only ten weeks, Noma Australia, through its collaborating creators, managed to embody the best the nation has to offer in terms of ‘ingredients,’ both at the table and in the physical environment. The decision to create rammed-earth counters is inspired. This is a material that is not suited to long-term hospitality use, but is ideal for the short-term embodiment of the ‘earth beneath our feet’ concept that reflects this great brown land – materially rich and satisfying, and highly evocative. ‘Fusion’ is a word that’s been used practically to the…

For this moodboard I chose to start with ARtouch because the supermatte black soft touch has a beautiful look and incredible tactile appeal. It invites you to touch it and, as the product is resistant to fingerprints, it can be used on horizontal surfaces, where previously we would have been wary of using a standard black laminate. I started with the smooth softness of ARtouch and built depth to the palette with textures and natural materials. I achieved this by using a range of products from the thick pile loop of the Danskina rug, the rustic grain of the reclaimed oak, to the beautiful lightness of the Laconia Air linen. The soft velour finish of the Formica Baikal and Indian Sage works so well with these understated colour tones. A…

Jack McKinney Jack is an architect and director of McKinney + Windeatt Architects, founded in 2002. The practice is focused on creating site-specific, individually tailored buildings. Jack has worked across a range of project types and budgets with a particular focus on hospitality projects and bespoke residential work. A consistent ambition is to deliver the best outcome for each commission with a rigorous approach to detail. He aims to provide strong, resolved and enriching architecture. The practice has won a number of awards at both local and national level, including the Supreme Award at the 2017 Interior Awards. Maggie Carroll Maggie is co-founder and director of Auckland based boutique architectural practice Bureaux. With an ethos of delivering their clients a total concept, fully integrated design, Bureaux’s projects are noted for…

The diverse pool of 158 entries (within Commercial Interior, Commercial Exterior, Residential Interior, Residential Exterior and Landscape categories) was united by the simplicity and honesty of timber applications in Australian and New Zealand design. The judging panel – comprised of Bronwen Kerr, director of Kerr Ritchie; Maria Danos, founder of Maria Danos Architecture; Cameron Bruhn, editorial director of Architecture Media; Geoffrey London, Professor of Architecture at the University of Western Australia; and Douglas Curr, technical sales and specification manager at Intergrain – was struck by the high quality of entries along with the continuing trend of showcasing the true quality of timber. This year, six projects were honoured: the winning entry in each category received $2,000 in prize money and 100 litres of Intergrain product; and one outstanding project, finished…

Winner Best Bar Design Designer George Livissianis Location Surry Hills, New South Wales Jury comment — The Dolphin Hotel is a treat. Both temporary and permanent, anarchic and cogent, this bar interior balances diametric opposites in exquisite tension. Originally a series of rooms for a series of art projects, the spaces work seamlessly together, united by a light-coloured palette. The Dolphin Hotel is successful both day and night, an achievement that is unusual in itself. The effect of the interior has been achieved in an economical and parsimonious way, and the overall impression is of an interior that doesn’t take itself or anything too seriously. Perhaps one of the most important outcomes of the creation of The Dolphin Hotel is that it has inserted itself provocatively into the conversation about…

Winner Best Retail Design Designer Woods Bagot Location Barangaroo, New South Wales Jury comment — Campos Barangaroo is one of those rare insertions that manages to complete, and thus make sense of, the space it occupies. It stands in rich, and somewhat glamorous, contrast to the bold sandstone wall nearby, and in harmony with the glass and steel detailing around it. Campos is a glittering ‘jewellery box’ installation, positioned and at home exactly where it should be. Primarily providing coffee, this brassfinished boxed venue, with woven brass mesh panels, puts a bold foot forward in a setting where some might have opted for a more neutral black, or something similar. More than equal to its materially rich setting, this exquisitely detailed café also occupies its chosen space asymmetrically, sitting in…

Airbnb opens the doors to its Parisian headquarters and shows how residential a workplace can really be. Words: Simon Bush-King The tech-office has become a recognisable workplace typology breeding both innovations and cliches in equal measure. With global ambitions searching for new markets these firms often require a local office where the resulting spaces can speak volumes about the culture and character of the companies they house. Airbnb have always had a ready concept from which to draw their design inspiration – having long designed their offices to reflect the living rooms of the houses and apartments that make up their product. Paris is built for just such an approach. The façades and large blocks of Haussmann’s Paris are heavily and perhaps thankfully regulated, making them practically unchangeable. This focuses…