Venue #47

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Sound, Control & Screens

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JANUARY Nº 47

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Column

Ending Is Just The Beginning My old high school decided not long ago that the summer holidays were no longer the most logical division for the end of the school year. Instead, over the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas the exam period would be followed by the commencement of the following year’s curriculum. Which is downright ridiculous. No kid wants to walk out of their ‘final’ exam, and be told they have to start the next school year this year.

They should be letting off steam, loosening the tie, letting the pigtails out, burning a maths textbook that cost their parents a cool hundred.

It’s the way things seem to be going around here.

We’re not even finished tying a neat bow on one job, and we’re already jumping on the moving bandwagon for the next one, or two, or dozen. It’s about keeping up with your market, and staying one step ahead of your competitors. But boy is it tiring leaping around like that.

That’s why I love New Years Eve. Even in spite of the fact that the guy who made that egregious Valentine’s Day movie is trying to cash in again with New Year’s Eve, and everyone in Hollywood has jumped on board including Zac Effron…and Bon Jovi. No middling middle class movie can dampen my enthusiasm for the signing off of one year and welcoming in the new. Because there aren’t many things left that actually begin and end anymore, they’re all just in a cycle of ups and downs.

Rather, let’s look at the past year and see if we can’t devise some changes for 2012 that might actually make it feel different.

Six things you can resolutely do or stop doing next year: • Resist the urge to put cages around all your light fittings and expose brick walls, because you know the resulting aesthetic is always going to be loosely described as ‘industrial’. Unless you decamp to a warehouse, in which case, knock yourself out.

• Stop over sharing. Degustation used to be the thing to do, and gave everyone something to complain about at McDonald’s on their way home. But now there’s nothing to complain about except that too-full feeling you get when you’ve accidentally eaten half of a shared platter for six. Or maybe that’s just me.

• Try and avoid VCAT. I said ‘try’.

• Get real about coffee, or at least don’t fake the impression that you have a micro-roastery out the back when it’s really just your busboy Paul grinding dishes together.

• Watch Kitchen Nightmares re-runs for a laugh, and hope you never have an ‘aha’ moment.

• Make proper sandwiches. Do we really want to let Subway define what a sandwich is? Because they’re crapping all over your focaccias right now. And boy, I could really go for a pulled pork baguette.

Well, have yourself a merry Christmas, enjoy pork product of all kinds, and enjoy the ending.

The end.

Mark Davie is editor of venue magazine. Drop him a line at: mark@venuemag.com

Barbara and Fellows is driven by producing interior design outcomes which are intelligent, considered, instinctive and visionary. As a collective, we value a close working collaboration with business owners, performers, artists, makers and designers.

Our enthusiasm for bespoke design ensures every project we undertake has highly personalised results with a healthy dose of delight. We are dedicated to activating a vibrant, hands on approach that realises the pleasure of good design.

mail us: help.me@barbaraandfellows.com.au visit us: barbaraandfellows.com.au follow us: twitter.com/Barbara_Fellows

JANUARY

Nº 47

Contents

“There are 15 micro-roasters in Melbourne now of which a handful are very good. But besides one of my competitors, they all buy green from basically the same spots and the same three or four brokers. So everybody says Finca La Fany or Fidel… but it’s the same f**king Finca!”

Salvatore Malatesta, Plantation — pg36

The A-Z of AV AV Special

Before You Make A Sound Are You A Control Freak The Screening Process

pg46 pg50 pg52

CONTENTS CONTACTS: Advertising Office: (02) 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 Editorial Office: (03) 5331 4949 PO Box 295, Ballarat, VIC 3353 Editor: Mark Davie (mark@venuemag.com) Publication Manager: Stewart Woodhill (stewart@venuemag.com) Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@venuemag.com) Publisher: Philip Spencer (philip@venuemag.com) Art Direction & Design: Dominic Carey (dominic@alchemedia.com.au) Additional Design: Leigh Ericksen (leigh@alchemedia.com.au) Circulation Manager: Jen Temm (subscriptions@alchemedia.com.au) Accounts: Jen Temm (accounts@alchemedia.com.au)

alchemedia publishing pty ltd (ABN: 34 074 431 628) PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 info@alchemedia.com.au All material in this magazine is copyright Š 2011 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. The title Venue is a registered Trademark. Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy.

New Sit Lit Jet Bar Caffe Eat Love Pizza Aqua Dining Smooth Operator New Brighton Hotel Fitzrovia Plantation Ruby Rabbit Design Brief The A-Z of AV, Special Palazzo Barbarigo Mural Hall Commercial Edge You Wish

pg10 pg16 pg18 pg20 pg22 pg24 pg26 pg28 pg32 pg36 pg40 pg42 pg45 pg56 pg60 pg64 pg66

The new Samsung LED*BLU Video Wall solutions put the focus back on the image Utilising the latest in LED*BLU video wall display technology, the Samsung UD55A 55 inch LED* Display is a revolutionary design, with super narrow bezels offering image to image gap of only 5.5mm, focusing the attention on the content. Full HD LCD with LED back lighting offers high brightness, colour, contrast and clarity without compromise.

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Swerve Design has been channelling the spirit of Home and Away at the Mona Vale Hotel. The real life Summer Bay is just up the road, and Swerve thought it best to keep with the program’s city slicker meets beach culture premise in their renovation. Already a local favourite, the Mona Vale needed a re-shuffle of the bar and gaming areas to attract new patrons. It meant that gaming was moved to a new outdoor pavilion, allowing screens and fences to be removed and let passersby see the action inside — win-win. With the layout sorted, Swerve turned its attention to character building details, starting with an earthy palette that complemented the existing building. Bi-fold doors between the entry portico and bar open up what was once a dead zone. New carpets from Feltex and Kai O pendants from Ke-Zu liven up the interior with a Thai tropical flavour, and a lush jungle graphic by Brandbox Creative creates an interior garden — with the water requirement of an occasional wipe down. A big hit was the Earp Bros bar front tiles, which the owners Fernwood Hotel Group liked so much they clad all the bars with it.

Throughout the rest of the space are smatterings of Balinese-inspired pieces infused with the remaining furniture to turn the vibe of the hotel without breaking the budget. And with the rearranged layout, the venue is the fresh new face of Summer Bay. www.swervedesign.com.au

Three of the siblings Reymond, offspring of top chef Jacques Reymond, are following in their father’s footsteps with the opening of Bistro Gitan. While not specifically on their father’s side of the pass, Nathalie, Edouard and Antoine each manage front of house roles, leaving Stephen Nelson from their father’s restaurant to head up the kitchen. Bistro Gitan sits in the Fawkner Hotel on Toorak Road in Melbourne. It took the family two years to find the perfect mix of French doors and windows, and warm wood tones that perfectly match Reymond’s Frenchbased cuisine. Of course, Jacques has had a hand in developing the menu, but Nathalie’s experience as a sommelier, and Edouard’s tenure at Movida stand the bistro in good stead.

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www.bistrogitan.com.au

VIDEO WATCH

Chill On Ice Lounge has relocated to Southgate on Melbourne’s Yarra River. The ice bar is cool — a -10˚C atmosphere and 50 tonnes of sculpted ice take care of that — but the freshest part of the experience is the new Ski Lodge addition. Freezing your butt off for a nip of vodka is novel, but everyone knows one of the best bits about a ski trip is the lodge downtime, and the stacked stone walls, timber staircase, and central fireplace of the Ski Lodge all put you in ‘thaw out’ mode. The new digs also mean Chill On now has a kitchen, serving up tapas style entrees to go with cocktails. The other change is that now Chill On is kid-friendly till 7 o’clock. They can check out all the sculptures, and sip on fruity drinks in their special nipper-sized outerwear. www.chillon.com.au

All I Want for Christmas is You, Mariah Carey & Justin Bieber Wow! A duet made in PR heaven. Mariah Carey: the Nadia Comaneci of perfect-10 vocal gymnasts; and The Nintendo Marketing Department: which has no trouble recognising a 3DS sales gifthorse when it trots into town.

The song is a familiar one, with a beautiful sentiment for this holiday season — ‘love is more important than stuff’ — while, paradoxically, the video does its very best to single-handedly kick-start the retail sector of the world’s largest economy.

A real-life ‘Coke is it’ Santa stops traffic in order to hand out coupons for a department store to wide-eyed, retail-impoverished pedestrians (side note: most people wear sandwich boards and get paid the minimum wage to do this). While Mariah brays on about ‘not wanting presents’ (and other seditious anticapitalist propaganda), the video tells a very different story: get your heavily leveraged

butts into the retail store environment so as to best gorge yourself on handheld games consoles and high-top sneakers — that’s what Santa would want.

So there we have it: a corny love song that provides a cautionary tale as to the dangers of unchecked materialism, married to a video that is an advertisement for the carnal delights of unchecked materialism. Should that concern you? Not in the least, because we get to witness Mariah’s perky bottom dance.

Mariah has elfed herself with an Adult Shop ‘Santa’s Helper’ costume and come-hither boots. She spends much of her time looking as coquettish as one can when knocking on the door of 50. Mariah still ‘has it’ and she’s not afraid to flaunt it.

A Christmas No. 1? Quite possibly… I’m sure The Federal Reserve boss, Ben Bernanke, would be hoping so. Come on America, all together now: “All I want for Christmas is [insert model number of desirable iGadget here].”

Postscript: Justin Bieber also makes an appearance in this video clip. A year ago Justin Bieber could quite easily have been mistaken for a real-life elf and this Christmas he’s playing one. I say ‘a year ago’ because puberty

has kicked in. Gone are the angelic, glassy complexion and carelessly mussed bangs — Justin’s grown up. And when a young pop tyro grows up, it seems that he’s genetically destined to transform into a missing member of ‘N Sync. Poor bloke, he had no say in this.

He finds himself compulsively stroking

his chin (so intriguing), and doing a little arms-up chicken dance on a podium normally reserved for half-price, oldstock Nintendo DSs. — CH.

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The Bridge Hotel has been cut through the heart by Techne Architects for Sand Hill Road. Seeing as Melbourne is so well known for laneways, the idea was to turn the middle of the Richmond pub into one. Having its guts ripped out has been liberating for the Bridge, transforming the old pub into, well, something amazing.

There are several different ‘tenancies’ dotting all sides of the lane. A photography studio/bar, which is actually fully functional as a studio, complete with light-rimmed makeup mirror; a ‘rock ‘n’ roll loft, loosely based on what Keith Richards’ pad would have looked like if the Rolling Stones hadn’t gone anywhere, including a bathtub for booze; a Havana-inspired bar and dance floor, covered in lush weathered timber with mirrorballs stashed behind a secret panel; an American diner, an indoor/outdoor green garden room, and a private dining room on the loading dock surrounded by a wire cage. They also have a Karma Keg, once a week Sand Hill Road puts a keg of Carlton Draught on tap. You pay what you want, but all proceeds go to charity. Sounds like a pretty good way to kick off a new, daring venue for the pub group. www.thebridgehotel.com.au

My Mexican Cousin is a joint venture between a few key Melbourne hospitality players. Coffee guru Salvatore Malatesta and the guy behind some of Melbourne’s most distinctive bars, Jerome Borazio, have joined forces. Borazio’s partners in Ponyfish Island, Grant Smilie and Andrew Mackinnon, have also jumped on board to make the restaurant and bar on the ground floor of the Melbourne Recital Centre something to head out for. The name is ripped straight from the St Ali menu, and Malatesta has sent over some top talent to deliver a Creole-inspired menu. Six Degrees came up trumps when pitching to the Melbourne Recital Centre board, and have delivered an open space in their inimitable style. venue recently talked with Salvatore, and he had this to say: “You’ve got the grog king and the coffee king. It starts to have some serious images, and I reckon it’s a good one. I know because we’ve had week three trade and it’s smashing it.”

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www.mymexicancousin.com.au

Albert St Food & Wine, which also corners Sydney Road in Brunswick, is inspired by its location as the original food bowl of Melbourne. At a time when growers would wheel down their produce from the Vic Market. Chef Philippa Sibley, so well known for her desserts, is turning her attention to unfussy, fresh savoury dishes. Part owner Stuart Brookshaw has been has been a manager and sommelier at Bluebird London, Salt Sydney, Icebergs, and plenty more, as well as being wine writer for the Sydney Morning Herald. What that means is the wine part of Albert Street features a list of over 200 wines, and visitors can choose bottles from the former bank vault turned cellar or just ponder their choice at the wine wall. Fiona Drago turned the former bank into a regal space, including recycled timber once from an old basketball court, lovingly shaped by Hamish Knox into tables and chairs.

While operators are duking it out in Sydney and Melbourne for an ever-diminishing slice of the pie, The Publican Group has been assembling a collection of venues in the developing hospitality spots of Western Australia. The Aviary is the group’s third venue, and their most ambitious yet.

Spread over two levels, the open-air rooftop bar, The Nest, with bowling green, trees, Astroturf and decking, offers a bird’s eye view of Perth’s CBD skyline. Below, The Birdcage is a sophisticated urban restaurant with a local WA seasonal menu. Visual elements include aviaries framing the entrance, and a one-off custom-made hummingbird carpet and custom-designed wallpaper.

www.albertst.com.au

www.theaviaryperth.com.au

Stumble into a Cantina in Mexico, and ask for the boss. That’s The Cantinero.

The Cantinero in Manly pops up every night at the Ground Zero coffee house, transforming it into an ambient space with a lantern-lined entry. By the team behind Miss Marley’s tequila bar, The Cantinero pop-up serves popular Mexican street cuisine and plenty of tequila.

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Designed by Michelle Leslie of Curious & The Specimen, upstairs at The Bellevue is an ode to the Chesterfield.

The heritage pub in Paddington has been renovated with sitting rooms and a private dining room decked out with rich wood, brass finishes, antique chandeliers and plenty of comfy leather Chesterfield sofas to sink into.

Barry McDonald’s fourth instalment of Fratelli Fresh has opened at 11 Bridge St, Sydney. The new Fratelli Fresh comprises fresh food retail, café Sopra, aperitivo bar, pizzeria and mozzarella bar. It also features the Cuvee Louise private dining room and Campari private bar all designed by Michael Delaney, who also designed Honky Tonks in Melbourne among other venues. www.fratellifresh.com.au

www.bellevuehotel.com.au

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The third level of Kinselas, on Bourke Street in Sydney, has been transformed into The Standard, a mid-sized, all purpose, performance art space. The level has been dormant for the past 15 years, having housed The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and more in the ’80s and ’90s. Owned by Riversdale Group, Peer Group Media will provide the creative programming for the space, which has already hosted Neil and Sharon Finn’s Pajama Club, and Bluejuice. www.wearethestandard.com

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Nando’s is serious about its restaurant design. Always a step above the average fast food outlet, at least in price, Nando’s is cottoning on to the idea of really turning its establishments into restaurants. They hired Design Clarity to help them achieve their goal, who have done a fantastic job on the Adelaide and Canberra iterations.

Ever thought what a pop-up hotel would look like? It has never really seemed that feasible, but Design Hotels have given it a go, and hats off to them, they’ve chosen about the only place it would work. Papaya Playa is a pop-up camp of 99 rustic cabanas on a 900m stretch of pristine Carribean coastline in Tulum Mexico. Running from December 6, 2011 to May 5, 2012, the project is designed to bring creative souls together with outlets for ‘spontaneous creativity’ at the amphitheatre and ‘beach jam sessions’. To encourage creative work, as well as play, the green workspace is free to approved innovative companies, entrepreneurs and freelancers who have a strong sustainable, cultural, environmental or social focus. The cabanas are made of wood, with varying degrees of luxury. That is, some have a bathroom, others have to share. The Restaurant, bar and beach is by Katerholzig from Berlin’s Bar 25, and the Raw Food Bar is by 42˚ Raw. www.papayaplaya.com

14 Depot De Pain Hawthorn is the third addition to the Depot family designed by Foong + Sormann. The venue is zoned into a shop and a café, with a central coffee station that can also cater to the street. Modular Lotis tubed wall lights from JSB Lighting, Delta downlights from Inlite and custom pendants from Angelucci 20th Century set the mood for the French wares, detailed joinery and Carrara marble.

Lavazza A Modo Mio has opened two boutique retail outlets in Melbourne. The Myer retail presences are colourful and focus on the A Modo Mio coffee system. Visitors will be able to learn more about the capsule system, and also participate in coffee classes and celebrity chef in-store appearances.

Nambour RSL has recently undergone a renovation by KP Architects, adding a new bar and restaurant. www.nambourrsl.com.au

INTRODUCING THE RED-1F FLUSHMOUNT REMOTE CONTROL

Last issue, venue featured Burberry’s Sydney flagship store (In The Trenches, Issue 46). Unfortunately the contact details for the uber-impressive large video walls weren’t correct, it was the Orion MPDP Plasma wall. It is a one of a kind product, which offers the very latest inVideo wall technology. TR Vidcom’s exclusive distribution has seen a number of exciting installations for some of Australia’s leading corporate, retail, marketing and entertainment sectors.

TR Vidcom recently exceeded expectations for high-end retailers Burberry.

According to the brief, the solution would need to present cutting edge quality and distinct usability. Specifically, the technology would need to allow for multiple signal feeds and remote connection. Versatility was a key component in this complete solution, as an eye-catching configuration would also need high functionality on the technical side — a crisp design and clear picture would not be enough. Any technical faults would need to be fully manageable at all times whilst maintaining a visual concept that stood out. Throughout the process, integration required factoring in the demographic aesthetic. An uncommon vertical or portrait installation of the main Video Wall completed TR Vidcom's fulfillment of this turnkey solution.

TR Vidcom (Orion Videowall): 1800 843 266 or www.trvidcom.com.au

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sit 4

Vue Up For Grabs

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Pumpkin Belt

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Shannon Bennett’s Vue de Monde, not your average restaurant, especially now it’s perched atop the Rialto. When it came to selecting furniture, Bennett wanted to keep it local. So he asked Aussie designer, Ross Didier, to come up with a collection that would suit his Australian outlook. Ross came back with an inspired collection of kangaroo hide and fur-covered chairs and tables. “It just seemed a bit of a waste that most of the skins were destined for shoes, footballs and European fashion houses without carrying their story,” says Didier. “Furniture adds uniqueness and identity to a space. Original pieces with a story and soul, breathing life into spaces by the most subtle of detailing.” And now the VDM collection is available for purchase.

Pumpkin is a collection designed by Italian architect Piero Lissoni. Made with interwoven strips of high tensile polypropylene and nylon belts. All the belts, and the powder-coated aluminium frame are heat and UV tested to ensure the pieces will withstand harsh outdoor treatment. That said, the modular sofa, chaise, and matching bench and low table, won’t be out of place indoors either.

Ross Didier: (03) 9459 1893 or mail@rossdidier.com

Ara by Pedrali

Bermuda

The polypropylene moulded chair and armchair is reinforced with fibreglass. It’s stackable, lightweight, and suitable for both indoors and outdoors. The Ara is available in black, white, charcoal, red, white, blue and brown.

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The Bermude 2-seat sofa from Aero Designs is a comfy lounge that doubles up. Each of the seats can pull out forward, converting one or both halves into a reclining chaise.

Aero Designs: (03) 9429 4910 or www.aerodesigns.com.au

Classique: (02) 9331 8822 or www.classique.net.au

Protoype: 1300 720 735 or info@prototype.net.au

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VUE DE MONDE

Liquid Lines: 26 Cromwell Street, Collingwood, VIC 3066 (03) 9416 4566 info@liquidlines.com.au www.liquidlines.com.au

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lit

Fire Tree

LED Mix Tape

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As is the process for most of Volker Haug’s creations, the Fire Tree candleholders have been lovingly shaped with the assistance of a sledgehammer. The resulting twisted and contorted aluminium tubing is then anodised with perfectly festive colours and wrapped with subtle leather binding. The finishing touch is the Byron Bay candles that melt down into a sumptuous mess.

The Fire Tree is available with one or two candles and made in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Prices start at $247.50. If the Fire Tree, or any other of Volker’s designs captures your imagination, you can check them out by appointment at Volker’s new showroom, 2-12 St Phillips St, Brunswick East, VIC. Volker Haug: (03) 9387 1803 or www.volkerhaug.com

Christopher Boots

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The J Lighting LED strip tape is great for creating ambience and for jazzing up the lighting scheme in any venue. The tape is easily concealed yet extremely bright to create brilliant colour effects. This type of LED can be used for backlighting bars, spirits shelves, DJ boxes, kickers, steps and is available as waterproof and non-waterproof. The tape can be cut to fit and is powered by the DMX 512 controller — providing a simple way to switch between red, green, blue, warm white, cool white, or setting an automatic switching option — allowing total control over the mood at any time.

J-Distribution: (07) 5599 1551 or www.jdistribution.net

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JL120 Moving Head LED

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Melbourne designer Christopher Boots has only just started his own lighting design practice, but you might already own some of his designs. In 2005, two young designers, he and Volker Haug, visited the studio of renowned lighting designer Geoffrey Mance. While Volker went on to do his own thing, Christopher accepted an offer to work with Mance. When Mance passed on in 2007, Christopher and the remaining designers continued the Mance legacy.

Now in 2011, Boots has his own company, his designs crafted by a collection of artisans. The Simple pendants each reflect their name shapes of Simple I, Simple X, and so on. Made of copper, zinc, iron, carbonite and silicon, each piece (starting at 1.3m wide) is simple yet striking.

The JL120 moving head LED fixture comes equipped with a 120W white LED — making it high powered yet energy efficient. Included are seven rotating slot-n-lock gobos and an open, as well as a static gobo wheel with nine gobos and an open. The JL120 is designed with built-in automated programs, built-in sound activated programs, userselectable pan/tilt ranges, automatic pan/tilt correction and user-selectable basic or advanced operating DMX modes.

The fully featured JL120 is an all-round visual solution for venues and events.

Christopher Boots: www.christopherboots.com

J-Distribution: (07) 5599 1551 or www.jdistribution.net

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JET BLACK Jet Bar Caffe: Shop 55, 455 George St, Queen Victoria Building Sydney NSW (02) 9283 5004 or www.jetbarcaffe.com Story: Joanna Lowry

Jet has lived at the Town Hall end of the Queen Victoria Building for 14 years. And when the QVB was being renovated last year, owners Antoinette and Tony Mowad decided Jet should have a facelift too. SJB’s Jonathon Richards was enlisted to help turn Jet into something smart, sophisticated — and black. “The client named the venue ‘Jet’ because he really loves black,” Richards said. “He wanted everything to be black on black. I had to convince him to introduce a bit of colour so that it wasn’t totally oppressive.”

The end result is, for the most part, black, but Richards has used reflective surfaces to add depth and light. Beveled black tiles and a brass ceiling set the space apart from the QVB’s sandstone and stained glass. “We liked the idea of creating an aesthetically dark and rich interior in contrast to the fresh colours of the QVB,” Richards says. The black theme bodes well with Jet’s cross over into nighttime trade too. “It used to be a breakfast and lunch venue, but there’s a lot of foot traffic in the evenings. The new Italian dinner menu and wine bar caters to that.”

The renovation has also seen the kitchen moved up onto a raised platform. “That’s freed up a lot of space,” Richards said. And, care of felttreated walls and a couple of steel airframes, patrons can enjoy Jet’s panoramic city view without the noise. Richards again: “Jet’s a real people-watching venue. You can be in this really busy intersection and still have some respite.”

CONTACTS SJB Architecture & Interiors: (02) 9380 9911 or www.sjb.com.au Space Furniture (Forsarini Pendant Lights): (02) 8339 7588 or www.spacefurniture.com.au Corporate Culture (Gubi Pendant Lights): (02) 9690 0077 or www.corporateculture.com.au JSB Lighting (Modular Lighting): (02) 9571 8800 or www.jsblighting.com.au Ginieco (Recessed Downlights): (02) 9690 1522 or www.gineicointeriors.com Euroluce (Reggiani Cylinder Lights): (02) 9380 6222 or www.euroluce.com.au Famco Lighting (Surface-mounted Fluorescents): (03) 9935 7300 or www.famco.com.au Map International (Ring Stools): (03) 8598 2200 or www.mapinternational.com.au Host Hospitality (Chairs): 0419 424 442 or www.host-hospitality.com Café Ideas (Table Bases): (02) 9690 2116 or www.cafeideas.com.au

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LOVE INSTANT PIZZA Eat Love Pizza: Ground Floor, IMAX Theatre Complex, Darling Harbour NSW (02) 8267 3666 or www.eatlovepizza.com.au

Ground floor of the IMAX Theatre in Darling Harbour is now home to Eat Love Pizza restaurant. The Dockside Group has replaced the Ice Cube Seafood Bar & Grill with a more fast-paced, family-friendly environment.

Head Chef Millan Vasovic, who started out at as a sous chef at the Regent Sydney in 1983, is heading up the kitchen with a new toy — the Middleby Marshall Wow! Pizza oven. If speedy pizza is on the menu, then you need one of these. It has slashed previous cooking times from a line-inducing nine minutes to a mere five minutes with a better air delivery system. And it also automatically shuts down if there are no pizzas in the oven, cutting energy costs by 35-40%. As well as pizza, Vasovic is plating up Southern European sharing platters, three mushroom ravioli, and a comprehensive children’s menu.

Eat Love Pizza was designed by DS17 as an Italian ‘home away from home’. It’s semi-rustic, with brick walls built in, and plenty of wood shelving with a healthy dose of Italian produce on display. It’s a simple premise — love to eat pizza, served fast — wrapped in modern Italian character.

Perfect for a pre-movie bite.

CONTACTS DS17 (Interior Design): (02) 9555 1805 or www.ds17.com.au Signature Joinery & Design: (02) 9625 0282 or sjd@sjd.com.au Timber Flooring System: (02) 9318 1881 or www.timberflooringsystems.com European Marble & Granite (Countertops): (02) 9666 1113 or www.euromg.com.au Design Tiles (Black Wall Tile): (02) 9567 8971 or www.designtiles.com.au Amerind (Timber Laminate): 1300 850 477 or www.amerind.com.au Porters (Chalkboard Paint): 1800 656 664 or www.porterspaints.com Bristol (Paints): (03) 9646 2444 or :info@realcolour.com.au Boral (Brick): 1300 134 002 or www.boral.com.au NSW Leather Company (Laguna Banquette Leather): (02) 9319 2900 or www.leatherco.com.au Unique Fabric (Cushion Fabric): (02) 9331 3086 or www.uniquefabrics.com

Arcon would like to congratulate Spiedo Restaurant and Bar and have enjoyed being a part of this project.

S PI E D O

SPIEDO

We are building contractors who take the time to listen, review your plans and work with you to match intended design usage. This matching process delivers you a business that is durable in terms of quality and functionality; a business that functions as intended...one that supports your point of difference.

Our other projects include: S P IE D O

SPIED O

S PIEDO

S P I ED O

CONSTRUCTION . INTERIORS . PROJECT MANAGEMENT

p 02 9389 4100 f 02 9389 4466 e arcon@arcon-nsw.com.au w www.arcon-nsw.com.au

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SIMPLE LOOK FOR ELABORATE VIEW Aqua Dining: Cnr Paul & Northcliff Streets Milsons Point NSW (02) 9964 9998 or www.aquadining.com.au Story: Joanna Lowry

“We have one of the best views in the world,” Bill Drakopoulos says of his restaurant Aqua Dining. And anyone would be hard pressed to disagree. With North Sydney swimming pool to the left, Luna Park’s Ferris wheel to the right, and, to the fore, a postcard-worthy panorama of Sydney Harbour — Aqua Dining’s in a pretty special spot. Which is why, when Drakopoulos decided that, after more than a decade in business, it was time for Aqua Dining to undergo a renovation, he told architect/interior designer Sidney Koh to keep it simple.

Aqua Dining’s new fitout is decidedly understated: “It’s better to have the drama on the outside than on the inside,” Koh said. “You don’t want strobe lights competing with a view like that.” The bar has been opened up, the tablecloths are gone and the colour palette — beige, cream and white — is muted. Quilted wall panels, polished mirror inserts and Eastern European sourced beechwood chairs add to the clean, refined feel. “We treated the glass envelope-style space as an extension of the harbour,” Koh said. “We didn’t want it to be busy.”

The new look matches the new Italian menu. “It’s lighter, and a cleaner finish on the plate,” Drakopoulos said. “It’s not so rich that you’ll only come for special occasions.” Guests can now enjoy either a degustation dinner or an antipasto and a glass of wine. Drakopoulos: “When we opened in 2000, there was more of a ceremony about going out to dinner. Now people want somewhere they can go to frequently, but they want it to be smart and elegant. That’s what we’re about.”

CONTACTS Supersoma (Architecture & Interiors): (02) 9281 7477 James Richardson (Chairs): (02) 9310 7155 or www.jamesrichardson.com.au Forbo Flooring (Carpet Tiles): 1800 224 471 or www.forbo-flooring.com.au Flos (LED lighting): www.flosusa.com Kvadrat Maharam (Upholstery Fabric): (02) 9212 4277 or www.kvadratmaharam.com

ARCHITECTURE

WITH JOSHUA

DESIGN

Architecture – Interiors – Build – Personalised & Professional 02 9550 2043 / info@joshuabacon.com.au / www.joshuabacon.com.au

Mention this ad before 28/02/2011 Feb to receive a FREE initial design consultation (value $300). Call 02 9550 2043.

SMOOTH OPERATOR When the sweet life gets sticky Matt Mullins is a partner in Sand Hill Road hospitality group

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A few years ago, Sophie and I were invited to a film festival in Giffoni on the Amalfi coast, in the South of Italy. I’d first been to Italy as a 12-year-old boy, and fell in love with the gelati. Then I went again as a backpacker, and fell in love with...well, every woman I saw! This time though, with Sophie in hand, we were guests of one of the country’s premier film festivals; and I fell in love with...‘La Dolce Vita’. Wherever I went in Italy I was struck by the sheer crazy beauty of La Dolce Vita, the ‘Sweet Life...’ and by the sheer crazy laziness at its core.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Italy — favourite country on earth after this one. But let me paint a picture: one sweet spring evening we took a private boat from Sorrento to Amalfi, cutting a trail across the azure Mediterranean as the sun set over rocky cliffs. We sat and ate fresh crustacean in the ancient, bustling square of Amalfi. We took the midnight bus back along the narrow, precipitous coast road; our hearts skipping a few beats a minute. And everywhere we went, we saw beautiful, happy, contented Italians. Mostly sleeping.

Now, I’m all for La Dolce Vita. I’m a publican for god’s sake! The relentless pursuit of the sweet life is the only reason I get up every morning...well, some mornings...when I’m not sleeping in (in Column deference to the sweet life, of course — it’s a vicious circle).

But that’s just the point: maintaining the sweet life actually requires a lot of work. You can’t have your sweet life and sleep it too.

But that wasn’t clear to me back in Italy. Nor was it clear to anyone else as it turns out. For this was pre-sub prime. Pre-Lehman Brothers. Pre-GFC. Pre-Greece crisis. Pre GFC II. And of course, preBerlosconi’s Bunga Bunga party!! So here we are: all that sweet life eventually caught up with the Italians, the Greeks, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Irish. And we’re all paying a massive price for their dolce vita.

BRINGING IT BACK HOME And that brings me neatly to my point: the world is in transition.

The way we live, think, shop, communicate and socialise is changing. And venues like yours and mine — pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants, cafes, you name it — will either change with our markets, or dwindle and die like a Greek pension fund.

I can’t claim any credit for this particular insight — we sat down recently with the guys from CUB’s Insights team. But for what it’s worth, I agree with them. Anecdotally, we see signs of this flux everywhere in our businesses. The world economy is in tatters and that makes people nervous, even here in Australia where we’ve been spared the worst of it. In times of great anxiety, we humans seek out those things we find comforting, safe, secure and familiar. Adventurism is out. Risk is too risky. We are drawn back to family, to community, to neighbourhoods, to anything local. We are attracted by the simple things in life again: by old friends, by good value, by comfort foods, by human contact.

That’s not to say that we devolve; that progress halts and we regress to a bygone era. We don’t go back to the past. Instead we reinvent old values to build the future. It’ll just be a different future to the one we’d have had if we were all still filthy rich and dripping in plasmas.

Nor does it mean we put a dead stop to bold, innovative, groundbreaking ideas. Many people in our industry will continue their wild, inspired adventurism, and they’ll find a market only too willing to

follow, whether to escape the anxiety they’re feeling, or ’cos they’re not feeling anxiety at all.

(There are 20 million people in Australia — and plenty of them haven’t stopped partying long enough to listen to the news, let alone worry about it).

But plenty have.

And in subtle ways, they’ll change the way we all do business. We’ve opened or reopened three venues this year: the Prahran Hotel, The Richmond Club Hotel and the Bridge Hotel — each large, iconic inner-city pubs. Each has been built with the one shared aim: to be a great local pub. They hark back to a time when the pub was a true public house, a gathering place, a living room for a local community.

They don’t ‘look’ old — in design they are each bold, fresh and new.

But they ‘feel’ old. They feel comfortable. They don’t narrow their appeal to hit a smaller demographic head-on, they broaden their appeal to touch a wider range more lightly. Dress codes are lax. Doormen are smiling. Locals are remembered. Inclusive is the new exclusive.

Blah, blah blah.

“Either change with our markets, or dwindle and die like a Greek pension fund”

CHANGE A BREWING Amongst all this lovey-dovey bullshit, we haven’t dispensed with innovation — we’ve embraced it. But we’ve focused it in new directions. I’ll give you an example. Rather than invent a new way for people to spend money, we’ve invented a new way for them to donate it. It’s called Karma Kegs. At 5pm every Friday we tap a keg of Carlton Draught. We don’t charge for pots, we let the punter decide what it’s worth. Whatever amount they want to pay goes into the jar and the whole sum is donated to small, local causes. If it goes wrong, we’re giving away free beer. But Karma’s a powerful force, and so is the goodwill in the public bar of a great local pub full of people anxious about the state of the world, and keen to connect with each other. At normal prices a keg of Draught brings about $650. The Karma Keg often brings twice that amount. Yes, times are tough, but don’t tell me we humans are cold, heartless and selfish.

Now, in case I sound overly impressed with myself, let me be clear: a) good local pubs aren’t a new idea, and b) they mightn’t work! And let’s add c) for every movement, there’s a counter movement. The enforced austerity of our time is nothing but a counter-cyclical response to the excesses of the last few decades. For all the appeal a simple local pub might offer now, it’ll fade the moment we start getting pay rises, bonuses and tax cuts again. We’ll be straight back to DJ’s, Harvey Norman and Audi, and a simple old local will be just that: simple, and old.

But that’s the fun of the game isn’t it? Understand your punter. Work out what they want. Give it your all to give it to them. And don’t wait too long before working out they’ve changed their mind and it’s time to start again. Grab a drink, relax, roll with it.

It worked for the Italians...sort of.

HOSPITALITY DESIGN & FURNITURE SPECIALISTS

INNER SYDNEY & CBD

@ qubed design is a creative practice specialising in bespoke commercial and hospitality interiors, furniture sourcing, procurement and installation.

Contact us on +61 406 101 707 www.atqubeddesign.com.au

www.diemme.com.au

Head Office p. 61 2 9550 0811 ext 1 Vic, Tas or SA p. 0403 254 200

BRIGHTON HOTEL IS ‘NEW’ AGAIN

After a decade-long arm wrestle, ALH has finally unveiled the ‘New’ Brighton Hotel in Manly, with four levels of seaside industrial design.

Story: Joanna Lowry Photos: Anthony Habashy (AH Photography) New Brighton Hotel: 71 The Corso, Manly NSW (02) 9977 3305 or www.newbrightonhotel.com.au

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uilt in 1858, New Brighton Hotel had always been a fixture of the Manly Beach Corso. For as long as most can remember, though, it’s been closed to the public, undergoing renovations, with owners ALH Group engaged in a seemingly never-ending arm wrestle with the local council about everything from trading hours to acoustics to outdoor seating.

Now, after 10 years and court consent in ALH’s favour, the hotel has reopened its doors, and Sydney’s Northern Beaches community couldn’t be more excited. “Locals have been sitting back and watching all of this for years, so there’s been a lot of anticipation,” Steve Howarth, NSW State Manager at ALH Group said. “When we finally pulled the plastic covering from the windows, we had people rushing over to peer inside. It was as though we were at a wedding unveiling the bride. Everybody wanted to know: ‘What does this girl look like?’”

SEASIDE INDUSTRIAL Rest assured, the old girl looks fresh as a daisy, largely thanks to a makeover by Altis Architecture, who were responsible for the architecture and interior design, creating a new exciting venue with four different offerings, and Fugen Construcitons who wrestled with the old building to realize that vision. at qubed Design picked up on this vision and fitted the space out with some pretty special furniture.

The brief given to Altis and was ‘seaside industrial’ — a term coined by Howarth, which was brought to life with exposed brickwork, galvanised steel and immunity to the wear and tear of beachside life. “We wanted something fashionable but functional,” Howarth explained. “The industrial look really stems from practical considerations. It’s a tough environment down there — there’s so much salt. The venue will also hopefully be very heavily patronised. It’s got to stand up to the rigours.”

The brief also emphasised maximising the building’s potential. “Ten years ago we had a very old building that was only utilising two levels of its floor space,” said Howarth. “Smoking legislation was on the horizon, so we wanted to create more outdoor space — not only to show off our ocean views, but also to accommodate our smoking patrons. The old hotel was quite one-dimensional — an 18-25 year-old crowd, with 90 percent of our trade coming in after 9pm — so we wanted to create some diversity in our offer too.”

With four distinct levels, New Brighton Hotel appeals to a wide demographic. The ground floor is a classic pub setup, catering to local workers and tourists, and the fitout plays nicely to the industrial theme. The bar is made of copper, and, given the coastal environment, will oxidise over time.

It’s flanked by oak barstools by Stylecraft. “The ground level has a lot of natural materials,” said Murray Stewart from Altis Architecture. “It’s hardy, and it’s quite masculine.” The floor consists of cobble stone tiles that replicate those of the original building. “In respect of heritage considerations, we worked with a specialist heritage architect named Jennifer Hill,” Stewart explains. “Other than some old tiles on one of the rear corridors the interior of the building no longer had any heritage significance because it had been eroded over the years. It was just the façade that we were dealing with.”

The heritage tiles were photographed and documented before the demolition works and then those images were incorporated into the collage of old black and white photographs that adorn the walls. And brass plaques, inlaid into the floor on the ground level, tell of the building’s history.

“It’s a real cocktail of the old and new,” said Howarth. “We really wanted to capture that heritage, something that older people who have lived in the area their whole lives would appreciate, as well as produce something modern.”

Fugen Constructions were tasked with the difficult job of maintaining appearances as far as the heritage façade goes, while fabricating an entirely new interior skeleton. Stephen Flannery, Managing Director of Fugen Constructions said, “One of the exciting challenges while re-constructing the New Brighton Hotel has been maintaining the existing façade, Fugen have completely gutted the existing building and have recreated a new internal structural skeleton to brace the building and support the new additional loads of the refurbishment. Another challenge was working closely to the strict delivery time frame of Monday to Friday 7.00am – 11.00am. At 11.00am each day we have to hand over the Sydney Rd pedestrian Corso back to the precinct.”

In that time, Fugen still managed to carry out the crane lifts and concrete pours needed to rebuild New Brighton Hotel.

CONTACTS Altis Architecture (Architecture & Interior Design): (02) 9364 9000 or www.altisarchitecture.com at qubed Design (Furniture Procurement): 0406 101 707 or www.atqubeddesign.com.au Fugen Constructions (Main Contractor): (02) 9289 3700 or fugen@fugen.com.au Cadence Australia (Project Management): (02) 9557 8866 or email@cadenceaust.com Cunneen Signs (Bronze Plaques): (02) 9637 9400 or www.cunneensigns.com.au Caesarstone (Bartops): 1300 279 927 or www.caesarstone.com.au Stylecraft (Barstools): (02) 9355 0000 or www.stylecraft.com.au Rugs Carpet & Design (Ege Carpet): (02) 9519 8555 or www.rc-d.com.au

“When we finally pulled the plastic covering from the windows, we had people rushing over to peer inside.

Everybody wanted to know: ‘What does this girl look like?’”

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UMBRELLAS UP As you walk up through the venue the finishes have a more contemporary feel. Level One is a cocktail bar, and a more sophisticated offering than the ground floor. As Stewart says, “This is where you have your umbrella drink, as opposed to your beer.” As on the ground level, by stripping back the existing building to expose the brickwork, Altis revealed the real, warm character of the building. The bar has a curved glass block wall with feature metalwork drop display that allows the natural light from the void to spill through into the space. The plywood ceiling, again reflecting a slightly industrial feel, adds warmth while the graffiti lettering adds another layer to the ceiling, which is also carried through to the toilets corrugated metal entrance screens.

In an attempt to juxtapose a raw, industrial aesthetic with a more refined feel, at qubed Design sourced an eclectic assortment of furniture — timber stools, patent plastic black lounge chairs by Pedrali, and luminescent ottomans by Emu. “The ottomans are solar powered,” Michelle Jansen Van Rensburg explains.

“During the day they soak up energy and during the night they glow. They’re great — sturdy and versatile.

You can sit on them, or you can put drinks on them.”

The cocktail bar opens up onto a balcony, where Michelle Jansen Van Rensburg has installed a number of high bar, dining and lounge options in black, white and turquoise: “It’s going to be amazing out here in the summer.”

Level two is the relocated Shark Bar late night venue.

Again, the brickwork has come out to play, creating a nightclub with very durable finishes. Artwork by local Graffiti artist Caspian de Looze, metal dry bars and of course the feature timber shingles add warmth, colour and texture. Not forgetting the mirror glitter ball just for that added little bit of sparkle!

The glow-in-the-dark ottoman’s big brother lives up here, in the form of a statement lounge with expanded mesh-style finish. Then there are the bold, white coffee tables by Vondom, complete with in-built champagne buckets. Tying in with the industrial theme are the stools made out of metal crates, which look great against the shingled wall that Altis installed. “It’s salvaged pieces of coloured wood; it looks like the roof of a building,” Stewart says. “We needed something for acoustic absorption, but of course we also liked the fact that it added visual interest and texture to the room.”

Graffiti artist Caspian de Looze was enlisted to paint a large-scale wall rendering of a shark. “We sought him out because we wanted to capture, really capture, the Northern Beaches surf culture,” Howarth says. “The colours are deliberately vibrant and summery. A bit of trivia: New Brighton Hotel used to be known as ‘The Shark Bar’, so out of respect for that, Level Two will still be The Shark Bar.” The roof top bar offers excellent views out to the ocean with bi-fold glazed doors creating a seamless flow between inside and outside. This area is very vulnerable to sea salt corrosion so Altis introduced a textured woven vinyl flooring to the bar front. It achieves a resort

style feel in conjunction with the soft vertical stripes on the inside face of the parapet wall.

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD Walk up the final set of stairs to the rooftop and the first thing you’ll notice is what can only be described as a giant cocoon. They’re called ‘Nest Rest loungers’, and they were launched by Dedon at the 2011 Milan Furniture Fair. “They are over-sized bird’s nests. You can get about five people in them, and ours are the first in the country,” Michelle Jansen Van Rensburg says. “They’re beautiful, intimate and cosy. They’re only about 60kg, and spin around on a wheeled base so they can easily be moved.” The loungers are accompanied by double daybeds, which are also upholstered in Extreme Leather, a hard-wearing and water resistant leather, resistant to even the most brutal coastal weather.

Connecting all the levels is a central void, or light well, which is one of the main features of the venue.

It affords a visual connection between all the levels and helps activate the spaces, giving glimpses of people passing through the space, up and down the stairs and revealing the colour criss-crossed lights illuminating the stairs themselves. “It creates a visual connection between the levels,” Stewart says. “If it wasn’t there the building would be like a stack of pancakes — you wouldn’t know what’s above you. The idea is that when you come in to the ground floor you’ll be enticed into exploring the building in the vertical as well as the horizontal plane. You also get some exciting and interesting angles.” While the void gives cohesion to the venue, each level is acoustically self-contained.

“So I can run a classical guitarist on the ground floor, and then a jazz artist on the first floor, and a DJ on the second,” Howarth says. “None of those offerings, from an entertainment point of view, will intermingle with each other.”

The renovation has also seen the addition of a kitchen, with dining options available on each of the four levels. “We’ve got a great new menu,” Howarth says. “The ground floor is very much about coffee, breakfast and traditional Aussie pub fare. And we've featured tapas on level one. So we’ve got your pub grub staples, but we’ve also given them a bit of a twist. We’ve got a fantastic dish — beer infused chicken, which will hopefully generate a bit of interest.”

COMEBACK TO IT It’s taken a decade, but New Brighton Hotel is back, bigger, and better. It hasn’t been easy, and Howarth makes no secret of the fact that ALH has expended a lot of time and money on the project. “It was a fiveyear consent that we got from the Land and Environment court back in 2005, and we had to make a decision,” he says. “We sat back on it for a very long time.

Finally our chief executive Bruce Mathieson said to me, ‘we’ll never have an opportunity like this again, we have to do this, and we have to do it well’. He bit the bullet. He had the courage to go ahead despite the instability in the regulatory environment. We’ve now done it, and I like to think — and hopefully the Manly community will too — that we’ve done it well.”

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A SEA OF AV Owen Peters and John Malisano from Sydney AV & Electrical were responsible for fitting out New Brighton Hotel with lighting and audio. A number of energy efficient and low maintenance Show Technology products were installed, including Martin MAC101 LED moving heads and MX10 fittings, LED strip lighting and Pulsar Chroma LED downlights. All lights can conveniently be flicked on and off via touchscreens located on each level.

have to listen to the doof doof of the DJ’s bangin’ tunes. Level 1, the cocktail bar, has a Martin Audio FOH system, again using the F12 and S18 combination. The ground floor and rooftop feature a mix of TOA ceiling speakers and Turbosound speakers and subs. The Biamp Audiaflex is a user-friendly audio control system that operates over all four levels of the venue.

Level 2, the nightclub, features laser lights supplied by Auslase. That’s as well as Martin Audio AQ12 and F12 speakers and a bunch of first class DJ equipment — a Pioneer CDJ 2000 and mixer, Technics turntables and Nightlife DJ pro. Care of speaker selection and installation methods, dB limiting and EQ adjustments through the processor, Peters and Malisano have also ensured that each level is acoustically self-contained — patrons on other levels won’t

Technical Audio Group (Martin Audio): (02) 9519 0900 or www.tag.com.au

Sydney AV & Electrical: (02) 9756 1411 or www.sydneyavelectrical.com.au

Audio Products Group (Biamp, TOA): (02) 9669 3477 or www.audioproducts.com.au Show Technology (Lighting Supplier): (02) 9748 1122 or www.showtech.com.au Nightlife: 1800 679 748 or www.nightlife.com.au Hills SVL (Turbosound): (02) 9647 1411 or www.hillssvl.com.au

A NEW OUTPOST, HAIL FITZROVIA! Paul Jewson has taken his truly open kitchen idea from Outpost and surrounded himself with just a little more space.

Story: Mark Davie Fitzrovia: 2/155 Fitzroy St, St Kilda VIC (03) 9537 0001 or www.fitzrovia.com.au

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aving wowed the crowds cramming into the all-too-small Outpost (Issue 35), Paul Jewson and Marco Pugnaloni have resurfaced with a brand new all-day eatery, Fitzrovia. For South Yarra locals, the teeny triangle Outpost tenancy (co-owned by Salvatore Malatesta from St Ali) was the perfect introduction to Jewson’s cuisine, which had featured in the UK at hotspots like Terrence Conran’s Bluebird and SoHo House, and in the spate of events Paul designed for the Royal Family. Outpost was also Jewson and Pagnaloni’s introduction to the Melbourne market, its size affording them the perfect dry run before eventually and inevitably moving to a bigger venue. Fitzrovia has come to life in the shell of the Waldorf on St Kilda’s Fitzroy Street. Lately the strip, right across from Albert Park, has been experiencing a resurgence. Baker D Chirico has been a beacon for around a decade, but with Fitzrovia opening and Andrew McConnell’s Golden Fields a few doors down, the whole area is looking in prime health.

CLOSE CALL It didn’t start off so well, though. Jewson and Pugnaloni are sticklers for looking after staff, to a fault. When they were handed the keys to the Waldorf, Jewson jumped right in to see if he could learn about the place and get it back on its feet again. All the while, the main intention was to retain the good majority of staff. The pair learnt a valuable lesson, shutting up shop and starting over with a purpose-made vision is better than trying to hold onto someone else’s doomed legacy. “It was the most painful month,” said Jewson. “I threw out some bad staff straight away. But I wanted to keep everyone else’s jobs open for them because I had some really good staff.”

The refurbishment was mostly handled by the pair, who have renovated their fair share of houses over the last 20 years. While the work was being done, they managed to find temporary positions for the staff at friend’s venues. And with a bit of help and a lot of hard work, they crafted a homely environment.

Jewson: “We designed, we tiled, we sanded, and we

hand-painted the brickwork because it was horribly graffitied. Even though it looks pristine now, it’s actually hand-touched up with red ochre paint.”

They also opened up the rear of the venue, removing a wall and reorienting the kitchen to create sightlines front to rear. Fitzrovia also features a truly open kitchen, which was one of the hallmarks of the Outpost experience. Again, diners can interact with Jewson and the chefs to create a custom culinary experience.

Panels of decorative coloured glass along the walls were replicated above the interior cutouts, herbs grow on every table and hang upside down around the entrance, and fruit picker boxes are used liberally. Jewson: “We found these beautiful fruit-picking boxes up in Kyabram. Sadly all the orchards have been quite modernised. So whilst they used to have these wooden boxes that they’d clip around their shoulders to pick a load of fruit, now they’ve got tractors that go and shake the tree and the whole lot comes down into huge big bins. It’s a bit sad. So they were getting rid of all these boxes and I bought about 500 of them, all stacked at home for future use. And we’re using them for everything; glassware behind the bar, linen, and other bits and pieces.”

FAST FAVOURITE A few months after opening Fitzrovia, the place is fast becoming a local favourite. So much so, that even their old staunch followers in South Yarra are making the journey over. Jewson credits the blogosphere for giving Fitzrovia the leg up at opening, “Café culture is so blogging based. So because of Outpost we had a big email database and started Facebooking, Tweeting and emailing out.”

Pugnaloni agrees: “They all came with a big smile. It was, ‘Oh, we found you again’. We sold Outpost over a year ago and all the regulars who used to go there don’t go anymore because things changed a bit. On weekends we have the same loyal customers that used to come two or three times a week. Obviously they’re local to South Yarra and now they make the effort to come as often as possible. It’s really nice.”

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DON’T FEEL HAMPERED Paul and Marco are constantly trying to think of fresh ways for customers to experience Fitzrovia. With the gorgeous Albert Park on their doorstep, and the Yacht Squadron down the street, their idea of fully-loaded picnic baskets is becoming a hit.

Jewson: “We’ve got this beautiful location here and during the day we’re sometimes finding it hard to seat people. So many things happen around here; everyone going onto their yacht down the street, the Tennis Open during summer, and the Formula One. We thought it would be the perfect idea to give people our food to take away. Rather than them coming in and saying, ‘I’ll have one of them and three of them and two of those.’ It’s easier to just pre-order something that is really substantial. We’ve got these beauti-

ful fliptop picnic hampers, with entrée, main course, dessert, cheese course, blankets, everything. It comes with crockery, cutlery, crystal glassware, and freshly squeezed orange juice. We thought if we’re going to do it, there’s no point doing something that’s going to be bargain basement product.

“And it’s working really well. We did a corporate function for a dozen people in Kings Domain last week. We’ve got a booking for 50 people this week at the bowls club across the road. A guy came last Friday and proposed to his fiancée in the Botanical Gardens over a hamper.

And he scored! We’re just trying to find other ways of doing things that people aren’t doing.”

Next on the agenda is to try and establish a grazing menu with their comrades down the street.

“A guy came last Friday and proposed to his fiancée in the Botanical Gardens over a hamper. And he scored!”

34 The vote of confidence when starting a new business is invaluable. And it has given Jewson the springboard to go one step further. Jewson wants people to know that Fitzrovia is an all-day restaurant, not a café. While Outpost had its advantages as a trial run, it lacked the ability to really let Jewson flaunt his skills. “It was a great project for us to get to know Melbourne, what suppliers we want to use, to meet people in the industry and suss out what Melbourne wants,” said Jewson.

“But it was a stepping stone for us. You couldn’t do breakfast, lunch and dinner at Outpost.”

Pugnaloni explains: “We tried doing a degustation dinner at Outpost, for 30 people. It was great, but it took up the whole café. So you have all these people outside watching the kitchen on display. It was just a bit of a strange vibe.”

Jewson: “It was such a learning curve for us and Sal is a really good friend of ours. He’s helping us in any way he can, with advice or picking the right machinery, particularly on the coffee side.

That was the reason we got involved with Sal in the first place because in Melbourne, coffee is king. And Sal is coffee king, so he was a good man to be involved with. And he’s very proud of us.”

ALL DAY, SOLDIER And as far as the ‘all-day’ mantra stretches, well how far can you go? Jewson: “I was working for SoHo House in the UK. The owner, Nick Jones, is very inspirational as a character and one of his pet philosophies was if someone comes into the club at one o’clock in the morning and wants a boiled egg and soldiers; you’ve got eggs, you’ve got bread, you’ve got a chef, you’ve got boiling water, what’s wrong with doing that? Give people what they want. If that’s all they want then it’s easy for you and great for them.”

STRAIGHT OFF THE PLANTATION Salvatore Malatesta wants Third Wave coffee to make an impact, and the best way to reach the mass market is in a shopping centre.

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Story: Mark Davie

Plantation: Shop 253, Level 2, Melbourne Central www.plantationcoffee.com.au

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ingle origin. It’s been the mantra of specialty coffee roasters around the world. Giving off the impression, whether they actually do or not, that they’re each sending caffeine swillers and sniffers on regular Cessna trips into the recesses of Costa Rica, Guatemala — or wherever a few coffea trees might be gathered — descend into the plantations, make one-off deals, and arrive home with a sack of beans and Jack’s guide to beanstalk climbing.

Salvatore Malatesta of St Ali, Sensory Lab, and now Plantation, says that it’s true. Except that in most cases it’s not the select origin story we might allow ourselves to believe. “There’s trips f**king everywhere, but there’s grapes everywhere too,” said Malatesta. “There’s only one Moet Chandon… right?”

He calls it the Finca La Fany syndrome (Finca meaning estate, or farm if you’re more agriculturally-inclined): “There are 15 micro-roasters in Melbourne now of which a handful are very good,” said Malatesta. “But besides one of my competitors, they all buy green from basically the same spots and the same three or four brokers. So everybody says Finca La Fany or Fidel… but it’s the

East Africa thrown in. When he’s not sourcing, he might lend his nose to the annual Cup of Excellence competition. But really, he belongs on the farm.

In a lot of ways he’s the catalyst for the single origin movement, but also part of the reason for Malatesta’s ‘Finca La Fany Syndrome’.

For cafés, and even for most roasters, there’s not enough money in it to be sending out a green bean buyer full time. There are thousands of farms in a single province alone, and trying to get abreast of the best — not only by farm, but also by harvest, and even down to the week the berries come off the trees — is all-but impossible. So when a Finca La Fany or a Finca Fidel has a tour going, it’s easy to hop off a plane in Costa Rica and feel like you’ve stepped right into the Third Wave. But the fact of the matter is there just aren’t many people like Geoff Watts around to take buyers to farmers that are too small to have a global presence, but who puts just as much or more into their estates.

THE PROBLEM, AT ITS ORIGIN Malatesta, however, is already in, which presents even bigger problems. “It’s really hard to get access to a trip like that — there are only six people on this trip, plus the

in and buy 5kg of green beans and roast them up. Another way is to have more than one coffee brand and push the boundaries of specialty coffee into different demographics.”

PLANTING SPOTS This has been the whole push behind Third Wave from the get-go. Not just to win over coffee die-hards that are already converted.

For things to really change, the mass market needs to get the message. That’s why Malatesta has opened his second café and coffee retail concept in a department store, called Plantation. (The first was Sensory Lab, a laboratory-themed café at the entrance to David Jones department store in Melbourne where baristas will survey your senses and match it to a coffee origin and process.)

Plantation is in a small food court of the Melbourne Central shopping precinct. Jennifer Lowe and Brooke Thorn of Barbara & Fellows, and Adele Winteridge of Foolscap Studio designed the fitout, which is based around the colonial era architecture associated with being out ‘on the plantation’. It’s a pastiche that builds on the ‘Finca La Fany’ syndrome with good cause. It forms part of the origin story, one that is necessary to tell if coffee is ever going to have as widespread

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same f**king Finca! If you go to origin, to Costa Rica, and go to Finca Fidel or Herbazu, those farms are one kilometre from each other and it’s what everybody does. They get off the plane, they go to Costa Rica, and they go to those four farms.”

WATTS IN A FINCA? To show what he means, Malatesta pulls up some photos of a recent trip to Columbia. The shots feature a small delegation of buyers riding on the back of jeeps and trekking through the jungle surrounded by green foliage, in every part living up to perception. In them Malatesta looks focussed, soaking up the sights and sounds of Columbia, often appearing in deep conversation with farmers and one floppy-haired man in particular. “That’s Geoff Watts,” says Malatesta. “He’s the chief green buyer for Intelligentsia Coffee… so he’s the coffee god.”

Watts has earned this kind of status among coffee devotees through sheer dedication.

He lived out of a suitcase for six years in the early 2000s, building a schedule around harvest times that would take in the farms and microclimates of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, with a few trips to

farmers. So when I do a trip like that I’ve got to buy coffee. I can’t just go there and hang out. It’s got to happen, and I’ve got to be able to cup the coffee. If there’s nothing good on the cupping table I can say, ‘This is all shit, I’m not buying any of it.’ But if I’m getting invited on a coffee trip, generally it’s going to be good coffee. When I buy coffee from origin, I need to be able to have credibility as a coffee buyer globally — not buy a pallet, but a whole container. Spend $150,000. Now as a micro-roastery, which is what we are, it’s difficult to use 17.5 tonnes from one origin.

“I want to be the best possible coffee experience in the world and I don’t want to — in any way whatsoever; brand, experience, or perception — come across as a bigger player, because for some reason that devalues the experience. Therefore, I can’t open more than one St. Ali — well not locally anyway, we have opened in London.

“But I need to be able to buy a container of coffee. So how do I do that and not throw the coffee in the bin? I need to be a green bean reseller.

“One way is to set up my own green bean business, which is being launched next year.

It’ll be called Green Lab — a green bean wholesaler and retail business. You can come

appreciation as wine. Which Malatesta contends, it should.

“I need more penetration points to spread the speciality coffee message,” says Maltesta.

“And I can’t do it by selling just to hipsters because hipsters already get the message.

“St. Ali followers get it, I don’t need to explain what a single origin or single estate is to a guy that comes to St. Ali and has the Honduras Finca Fernandez Cup of Excellence Lot #15 siphon. They know as much as we know, they’re on the net researching.

“Push that boundary again to David Jones Little Collins Street, it’s an urban experience and it’s Little Collins Street, so it’s not as hard to push that message again. There are informed consumers and aspirational coffee aficionados. Push that boundary to a shopping centre and it’s harder. I mean you’re talking about people who think Kenya is a blend!

“Anybody can sell to the converted. Open a café north of the river for a bunch of hipsters, easy work. I can, and I do that. But if I’m going to be a true coffee pioneer, my work is trying to chip away at the commercial grade coffee stronghold because that’s where the market is.”

COFFEE BUZZ Salvatore gets a buzz from coffee that’s entirely separate from the caffeine.

For him, a trip to the nether regions of the Americas isn’t just a glorified holiday into the jungle, but can bring on a case of the sweats.

“When you’re at a cupping table and there are 300 coffees a day, it’s all in the cup. It’s a sink or swim situation. You’re there, there are eight other buyers, you’ve got the coffees, and at the end of it you’ve got to back yourself and make a decision. If you get it wrong it’s f**king expensive. And if you get it right, it’s really rewarding.

“I’ll use Don Pache as an example because it’s famous. I paid $105 a kilo off the cupping table and went to auction. The Japanese paid $250 a kilo. It was the same coffee for less than half price. I was able to sell coffee to my end users, make a margin cheaper than the Japanese could sell it to their end users because I bought it off the table.

“I bought what they call ‘first cut’. It’s the early harvest — went to table, cupped it, backed myself, bought it on a punt because it can change by second harvest. That’s the kind of work that we do.”

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“Push that boundary to a shopping centre and you’re talking about people who think Kenya is a blend!”

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COLONIAL RETAIL Like Malatesta intends for his coffee, the design was another step towards the mass market without losing the specialty feel. It’s a balance that’s not easily achieved, and one that Liquid Lines helped with their handcrafted building style.

Archways rib the long, slim tenancy, creating a colonnade effect, like the balcony of a big colonial estate.

“Those arches come down and define the shopfront,” said Brooke Thorn. “They became little booths where you order and collect your coffee.”

Where the arches meet the shopfront, it creates a series of dark portals surrounded in ironwork and strong tile designs. “There was a conscious decision not to use stainless steel,” said Jennifer Lowe. “Or rather, use as little as possible because you always end up with a little in hospitality. That’s why we tended towards copper and brass, earthy metalwork and tones, because we didn’t want to have that real modern feel.”

Inside the shop, the layout is noticeably ‘retail heavy’.

In that, it’s the first thing that confronts you. Lowe again: “We played with what would go up which end; retail or coffee service. We ended up putting the retail where the most pedestrian traffic was because we’d noticed in most specialty coffee places that do have a retail element, it often feels like an afterthought. People look at it from a distance and don’t really know what to do, so they don’t approach it a lot.”

DRIPPING WITH COOL From the front end, customers can pick up Plantation brand coffee, and select Hario coffee equipment — syphons, kettles, the lot. But stretching down the middle of the store is a couple of new initiatives from Ross Quail, General Manager of the group, and master roaster. There are a series of glass cloches with a bowl of beans inside. It’s an idea Ross had seen done before with scented candles. The idea being that rather than smelling the candle, you pick the cloche up, stick your nose in and smell the pure aroma.

The other is something truly Third Wave. While ‘single origin’, ‘siphon’, ‘Slayer’ machines, ‘Cup of Excellence’, and ‘Panela’ sugar are all words those of us not indoctrinated about coffee from a young age have come to appreciate as the Third Wave of coffee spread across our nation; one that had perhaps not crossed over into the common coffee lexicon is the ‘cold drip’.

Essentially it’s a coffee concentrate that is harvested using room temperature water over a period of about 12 hours. It’s a long way from the convenience of extracting an espresso in seconds flat. But the upside is a lower acidity because it steers clear of the associated heat. What you end up with is coffee you can take away in a bottle, take a sip in the morning for a caffeine hit, enjoy it with a spot of milk, ice it on a summer’s day, or mix up a vodka cocktail that will really turn the screws. Oddly, the long drip time results in a coffee of convenience.

CONTACTS Barbara & Fellows (Design): help.me@barbaraandfellows.com.au Foolscap Studio (Design): (03) 9602 2630 or www.foolscapstudio.com.au Liquid Lines (Construction): (03) 9416 4566 or info@liquidlines.com.au NMH Metalworks: 0401 515 193 or www.nmhmetalworks.com.au Good Sir & Otto (Joiners): (03) 9078 4103 Astra Walker (Tapware): (02) 9912 8888 or sales@astrawalker.com.au Coffee Machine Technologies (Coffee Equipment): (03) 9335 2293 or sales@coffeemachinetechnologies.com.au Signorino (Stone): (03) 9427 9100 or info@signorino.com.au Mary Noall (Duravit Vanity Basins): (03) 9690 1327 or sales@marynoall.com.au Abyss Stainless Steel (Kitchen Equipment): 1300 617 007 or quality@abyssequip.com.au Inlite (Lighting): (03) 9429 9828 or www.inlite.com.au Viridian (Glass): 1800 810 403 or www.viridianglass.com Dulux (Paint): 13 23 77 or www.dulux.com.au Olde English Tiles: (03) 9427 7677 or tiles@oeta.com.au Aeria Country Floors (Tiles): (03) 9690 9292 or info@aeria.com.au Simsite (Additinal Joinery): (03) 9791 3611

Ruby Rabbit finally opens its doors to everyone.

Story: Jessica Black Ruby Rabbit: 231 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst NSW (02) 9331 0633 or www.rubyrabbit.com.au

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ourting the pink dollar can get you far. And Sue Lombous, Director of Ruby Rabbit, plans to do just that with a refurbishment of the threelevel bar and restaurant that embraces Oxford Street’s mixed crowd. “The gay market wasn’t accepted in this venue before,” said Lombous. “But it is a beautiful market to have, they’re well behaved and enjoy the space.”

It’s a market with a long memory, says Lombous. But with the building gutted, and refitted to a fantasy theme, there are few corners for bad feelings to linger. The earnestness of the high-end club has been replaced with a space that’s interactive and evolving — more tongue-in-cheek than a hit to the hip pocket.

“Previously the cocktail lounge was one of the most successful areas but it had a $10,000 membership and that’s not what we’re looking for,” she said.

CHILD’S PLAY At the turn off to The Cross, Oxford Street’s late night strip is hardly the place for child’s play, yet a children’s party house on the North Shore was an important touchstone for Lombous. “Everybody says as a child you remember certain things. When I was a kid I went to a place called Delicious at Hunters Hill,” she said. “As soon as you set foot in the door it was an imagination process. It’s very clear in my mind, it was about fun.” It’s this infusion of childhood memories and imaginative roleplaying that sets the tone for Ruby Rabbit. “You either go for it, and you go full fledged, or you go for a clean line contemporary venue.”

Artnow Studio Director Rodney Surawski’s background of set construction and period detailing is unleashed in the upper level cocktail bar, under what was a fairly elastic brief. As Lombous was trying to channel the playhouse of her childhood, the designers were allowed to run with their more fantastic ideas. Oiled by a few drinks — which Surawski confessed inspired some of the more outlandish aesthetic decisions — the team has achieved a balance of other-worldliness with real world pragmatics. “The space always cried out for a little obscurity. It is hard to create the absolute fantasy venue as there will always be something in the way of limitless design,” he said. “The fact that

the client allowed us to design with contrasting styles, and allowed us to prove that it really could work was brilliant.”

SET CHANGES Perhaps the most obvious childlike hook is a vintage-styled wallpaper of life-sized paper dollies. It’s exactly the kind of quirk that’ll demand a second look. “It’s important to have a graphic element that nobody else has. Some ideas don’t have to make perfect sense, it’s just important that they work in their surroundings,” said Surawski. “In this case the design of the bar came after the wallpaper design.”

Upstairs, prints of Melbourne artist Katrina Rhodes’ work are set in panels along the turquoise walls, framed by intricate plasterwork.

Rhodes’ work was just the right blend of old and new Ruby Rabbit, said Surawski, and would be “putting a big smile on the face of even the most serious conversationalist”. Each layer of Ruby Rabbit has some kind of art or wallpaper, and each is part of the ongoing scene change Surawski and Lombous expect to happen. “When you add to art, you’re creating something new every time,” said Lombous. “It’s a blank canvas that keeps creating.”

ONE FOR ALL As for whether he bent the design for the gay market, Surawski is emphatic that the two can be similarly catered for: “When it comes to good hospitality design, there’s no major difference between straight or gay tastes – that may not have been the case in years gone by, but it is now. Nobody wants to be in a venue that has no aesthetic conscience, as we all want to feel like we are amongst style and in comfort.”

Surawski is happy to leave fate in the promoter’s hands, and for Lombous too, it’s all about getting word out there that Ruby’s door is open to all. It’s a message of accessibility with a keen contrast. In its previous incarnation, Ruby had a hidden bar for the crème de la crème, accessed via a trick bookcase. Today, three distinct levels cater to everybody from early evening to early morning. “It’s about blending; presenting the brand as fusion. It’s about making the venue for everybody,” said Lombous.

“There’s no venue on the strip that does that, and we want to do it well.”

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DESIGN BRIEF Technology Race Pace: Keeping up appearances is one way to stay on top of things, but pacing yourself for the technology race can get you ahead.

Story: Geoffrey Lee, Woodhead Director of Hospitality

With the speed of technological change, hotels around the globe struggle to keep up with the pace. And with everyone in the world having some kind of mobile device or tablet, we all expect instantaneous news and entertainment in a user friendly way. Might sound simple at home, but for hotels and the entertainment industry the bar is high.

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Column

WHY-FI? The latest technology to hit the hotel industry are wireless systems that not only link TV, movies, music, iPod dock, messages and stock results (which are off the grid these days anyway), but also add operational benefits for hotel managers.

Wireless sensors can also figure out when you have left the room, setting off a procedure that can shut down the air conditioning and let housekeeping know they can clean the room. And meal trays can have a built-in electronic chip that lets room service know they can pick up your leftovers, rather than coming back after six hours of sightseeing to a cloche of rotting food.

You can set your room to times and moods, so in the morning your favourite music wakes you up, raises the room lights to a satisfactory hangover level and opens the curtains, or vice versa in the evening. And just like home, you can program recordings of the news or your favourite show. All this, based around a single remote control or tablet similar to an iPad. TALK TO EACH OTHER At a minimum, we need to ensure the AV systems and technology work, and are integrated. Without naming names, there’s a 5-star luxury hotel in Singapore with a Bose ‘woofer’ cut into the timber panelling just above the TV — stylish! And I wish I could forget the curtains opening and shutting at 3am in the morning.

Then there is the luxury resort in Thailand with at least four remotes controls — TV, stereo, CD, DVD — none of which work or talk to each other.

Horror stories aside, there are many hotel management companies out there that spend a lot of time and energy ensuring their AV technology, TV, phone, cable, Movielink, and messaging are all seamlessly integrated.

The Park Regis Hotel Singapore had a very efficient but small room with a large wall-mounted plasma. The hotel had co-ordinated its vendors to optimise every one of the facilities to give the guest the best possible experience without shelling out 5-star room rates — and it works well.

For the luxury brands (and sometimes mid star hotels) a TV in the bathroom is imperative, not just fixed to the wall but concealed flush as a TV mirror unit. Windows that can change colours such as the ones in the

“Any hotel that doesn’t at least have an iPod dock is a dinosaur” Philippe Stark-designed St. Martins Lane Hotel in London, or switchable opaque-to-transparent privacy glass between the bathroom and bedroom, and the LED strip lights highlighting mirrors and fixed art in the Pullman Hotel at New Delhi Airport, are all great examples of how technology is being seamlessly integrated into hotel design in cost effective manners.

AUXILIARY SERVICES AV and technology are part of our lives and what a wonderful addition they are. We don’t seem to be able to live without them, and hotel designers and operators need to not just keep up, but exceed our everyday expectations.

Any hotel that doesn’t at least have an iPod dock is a dinosaur. Even I have three docking stations at home.

My recent trip to Hawaii was frustrating because not one hotel, except the JW Marriott in Iolani, had an iPod dock despite being advertised as iPod friendly. The concierge explained, “You can go down to the local AV store and purchase a cable to connect to the stereo auxiliary.” What wonderful customer-friendly service.

W h wi at t th o so do un wh d, en im g ag ett e a ing nd h co and nt s ro on l 45

Before You Make A Sound Richard Hallam runs Your Sound Investment, an audiovisual design and installation company that has been fitting out venues like Trunk, Little Creatures Dining Hall and Made Establishment (previously The Press Club Group) venues with great sound and vision for decades (check out Richard’s St Katherine’s install in Issue 46). Richard is here to help, so before you jump in head first, mounting home stereo speakers to concrete walls, take some time to think soundly.

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SPEAK UP ABOUT YOUR MARKET.

BE HONEST WITH YOUR EXPECTATIONS. You might think your only requirement is to ooze Café Del Mar all day and nothing else. But what happens on New Years Eve? When you know full well that you’re going to try and blow the system to bits. Even seasoned campaigners can get so wrapped up in the purity of their latest business concept that they forget to account for the occasional extremes. And it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. In the end, it might be equally cost effective.

One of the processes of elimination I try and work out with the client is how loud the system’s going to be, and what the market is going to be.

Enlisting tiny little two-inch speakers to fill a room that can hold 400 people? I don’t think so.

ARE YOU EVER GOING TO PUT A MICROPHONE THROUGH YOUR SYSTEM? Because of feedback issues, dynamics, and all the rest of it.

It’s certainly near the top of the list of questions to ask.

Bose RoomMatch — Tailor-made Audio The word from Bose boffins is that the latest technology to come out of their labs has been almost a decade in the making. It’s called RoomMatch. A technology that at it’s most disruptive, redefines the way large PA installations can be specified and purchased.

Bose has a history of speaker innovation, and specifically, has had a good run of developing new ways to direct the sound coming out of a speaker. Being able to physically control the spread of sound is a big deal, and is often responsible for improved clarity, more efficient use of power and the ability to cover areas with more consistent sound.

Years ago, PA speakers were pretty indiscriminate devices that sent sound in a general direction that was for the most part ‘forward’. Line source arrays were the next ‘big thing’ in directing sound towards a source, and really took off in live concerts. Line arrays are a vertical array of speakers that each

distribute sound very wide (typically around 120 degrees), but have a very limited vertical coverage of maybe up to 20 degrees. This allowes lots of units to be stacked on top of each other without the sound from any two interfering with each other, and enabled arrays to send sound efficiently over a much longer distance.

But with such a wide spread of sound horizontally, there are issues with sound bouncing off walls and reducing that all-important clarity when indoors. Which brought developments in ‘tuning’ arrays to change the spread of sound. Needless to say, making speakers in a box that are fixed one way change their habit and direct sound in a different way is not a perfect science, although in the last decade has come pretty close.

Bose has other ideas. Their thought is, why not make lots of boxes that point sound in specific ways and just choose the right ones when they’re needed.

Bose has 15 different speaker options to choose from, plus a subwoofer. The initial range covers a combination of five vertical, and four horizontal waveguide patterns, which will cover just about any room. They’re calling them Progressive Directivity Arrays, where each box is different. Typically, you will have highly directive long-throw modules at the top, to lower directivity, short throw boxes at the bottom. Best of all, you can plug a 3D model of your room into Bose’s Modeler program, where it will show you how effective any given configuration will be, then you can pop your head into their Auditioner module (a little speaker system that emulates the finished install) and see just how good it’s going to sound. It’s the difference between buying a suit off the rack at Myer and having some bloke shove a tape measure up your inside leg. You get to have your very own tailored sound system.

Bose: 1800 173 371 or www.bose.com.au

SHOW US A SKETCH AND SAVE MONEY.

THINK OUTSIDE THE AV BOX. We’ve rewired the Press Club to have signal inputs around the building. Because when they would do a wine launch or function down there, they would hire in monster speakers on stands, and run cable and gaffer tape for days. Then they’d have to get a technical operator and the wireless mics working. Before they’d known it they’d spent $500 on something they could easily do in-house, not a problem.

So we put together a little flight case for them that they can move from restaurant to restaurant. The box is preset, with limited knobbage, two wireless systems and an iPod point. They can plug it into any point of any of their restaurants and run four wireless microphones simultaneously through the house system with an iPod at the same time. And that allows them to do every conceivable function they’ve ever done for basically no cost. They’ve also got a lectern that can be moved from one building to another.

The best time to be contracted is while looking at architect drawings of a proposed area. After the drawings are signed off for construction, with air con and electrical, we can then plot speakers onto that drawing and give the electrical contractors a wiring spec and they rough all the cables in for us. We try and work that way because it’s much more cost efficient for the client. If we have to engage another electrical contractor, it works out to be more expensive than using the site electrical contractor, because you might have to re-hire a scissor lift or scaffolding for the job — gear that would have previously been onsite.

STOP THAT BLASTED NOISE. If you’re sitting at a table with a fashionable polished concrete floor, a plasterboard ceiling less than 3m above, and plasterboard walls, you drop a knife on the floor and it sounds like a bomb has gone off. It’s all very well having fashionable finishes, but you have to think about the couple having a nice quiet chat without the next table hearing them, or competing against the racket from open kitchens. Made Establishment have set themselves a prerequisite to put in a lot of acoustic panels. I give them a lot of information about types of panels: whether they absorb or reflect, where they should be positioned, etc. At St Katherine’s the entire building has got panels everywhere, and it works well. You don’t want to get to the point of having to fix the acoustics by putting carpet on the underneath of tables.

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GOING A BIT BIGGER EAW Raise Low-Cost Bar EAW’s VF family of products combines a hybrid of portable and install features in one package. VF products were engineered with a robust design, including uncompromised sound quality for multiple applications with clean blended lines, rigging, and transformer options desired in an installation product. Extremely versatile, these new units offer great sound quality and power for value, and the boxes feature a clean, consistent design with an elegant style. Great for auditoriums, theatres, nightclubs and DJ setups, bars, music performances, etc.

Production Audio: (03) 9264 8000 or info@productionaudio.com.au

V-Series The V-Series is a range of speakers, subwoofers and active loud speakers ideal for concert and entertainment venues such as bars, clubs, hotels and stadiums. The series is a wide-ranging solution to any sound reinforcement requirement. The V10, V12 and V15 feature a generously sized high frequency horn and a high order crossover for superior pattern control down into the low midrange and smooth offaxis characteristics. For versatility the V10 can also be pole mounted and has integral mounting points. The J Audio VSeries is priced competitively and not to be under-estimated when considering your next install.

J-Distribution: (07) 5599 1551 or www.jdistribution.net

K Has Tough Skin

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QSC’s KW series of speakers packs the performance of its K series neatly into a Baltic birch ply box. There are four powered models in the series including a 12-inch 2-way loudspeaker, two 15-inch models, one two-way and the other three-way, as well as an 18-inch subwoofer. Each model comes with 1000W of onboard Class D power, clipping protection, EQ enhancement, uniform coverage across the sound field, and both combo mic/line level inputs and a set of RCA phono inputs for connecting external media devices. Prices start at $1800 for the 12-inch.

Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or www.tag.com.au

THE LATEST INSTALMENT Hi-Fi Sound Outdoors

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Nice Hang

Yamaha VS The World

Straight Down The Line

Canton believes there should be no reason to do without great sound.

Even in difficult situations Canton’s Pro Series provides a whole range of sophisticated specialities that are as durable as they are subtle.

These outdoor speakers are moisture protected, include a safety cord and mounting bracket.

Under the umbrella label of The White Range, d&b, best known for no-expense-spared, primo touring PA systems, has the xS-Series and xA-Series, both include very compact indoor/outdoor, standalone and arrayable loudspeakers and matching subwoofers. Acoustically they produce a consistent neutral sound, coupled with physically discreet mounting hardware.

JBL Control Contractor 60 Series Pendant loudspeakers are designed for venues with open architecture or high-ceilings, while providing superior voice and musical clarity for rooms with difficult acoustics. The range is suitable for a wide variety of applications and decors, from convention and exhibit spaces to atriums, restaurants and retail stores. Included, easy-toinstall hanging hardware features redundant suspension cables and UL listed adjustable-height hangers. Price: from $180.

Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems’ VS Series of surfacemount speakers are ideal for public address, background music, retail store, club, restaurant or meeting room. The VS Series speakers deliver high quality sound with exceptional clarity in both indoor and outdoor settings. There are two models offered in the VS Series, with water-resistant enclosures and transducers. Internally mounted transformers enable the speakers to operate in 70V or 100V distributed sound systems.

TOA’s Type H Column Line array is one of the slimmest audio solutions around. At only 84mm wide, these stylish columns will fit in most venues. The controlled dispersion makes sure sound goes where you want it, and out of problematic areas. There are four models, two short and two long, in either a straight or curved configuration.

Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or www.jands.com.au

Yamaha: (03) 9693 5272 or jason_allen@gmx.yamaha.com

Canohm: 1800 636 026 or www.canohm.com.au

National Audio Systems: (03) 9761 5577 or www.nationalaudio.com.au

Audio Products Group: 1300 134 400 or www.toa.com.au

Are You a Control Freak?

There’s a whole raft of cool things control systems can do, you’ve just got to be a bit controlling and ask for it. AMX Technology Director Graham Barrett suggests a few ways you can make the system work for you.

AV 50

CONTROL The Devil Is In The Detail

LIGHTING

CENTRALISED CONTROL From one interface you can change the entire atmos of your environment. Activated by either a button push or a scheduled approach (e.g. at 11pm, go from ‘Dinner’ to ‘Club’ mode), rather than altering every subsystem individually, the control system can change them all at once.

It’s relatively simple, and the great thing is, the manager doesn’t have to remember the settings.

HYBRID CONTROL & SIGNAL MANAGEMENT Getting signal to screens was one thing, but controlling them used to be an extra layer. Nowadays with digital distribution systems, the control is embedded in the same platform as the signal management. It means the same controller can manage more and more equipment within the space.

DEMOCRATISATION OF CONTROL

?

Previously, sticking a touch panel in each zone was prohibitively expensive. What the newer systems are allowing is the integration of very economical user interfaces — from very simple wall panels to even simpler remotes — that don’t have to be the same brand as the control units. You can even plug a $20 IR receiver into a system, and program it using a $50 remote control. All of the back-end smarts are still there; it’s just the user interfaces that are more economical.

CONTROL YOUR ENVIRONMENT You can monitor and manage the entire energy consumption of your environment, right down to individual devices. Therefore, you can take downtime, power and cost of service figures into account when you make decisions about upgrading. Displays are not an insignificant cost.

Knowing the total cost of ownership of those displays is really valuable information for the venue if they’re updating or adding systems.

OPERATION WITHOUT FAIL If a display fails at 3pm, rather than waiting till 7pm, when the club’s pumping and you’re desperately trying to turn the screen on only to find out it’s malfunctioning, that failure can now be reported earlier. Also, if the venue has a service agreement with an external provider, a message can be sent to that service agent to come in and fix that particular screen. It could be the same with an amplifier failure, for instance. It’s about being able to deliver the experience without fail.

“Knowing the total cost of ownership of those displays is really valuable information for the venue if they’re updating or adding systems”

PERFECT TIMING You can lock in the longitude and latitude of your venue and change schedules to arbitrary times like ‘sunset’ as opposed to a fixed time of 7pm, for instance. It’s another easy way for getting the mood right, especially in an outdoor area.

GRANULARITY OF CONTROL The programmer exposes the various functions of control so that the administrators of the venue can get specific. So if you find you’re getting less traffic every second Thursday, you can decide to shut down a particular area even if it wasn’t programmed into the initial system. With Resource Management Suite (AMX’s control software), you can drill down into individual devices and functions to take a much higher level of control.

GET STAFF INVOLVED IN CUTTING COSTS How much power are my displays using? What’s my total carbon footprint? When there’s an initiative to reduce power consumption, you can display that to the staff.

Then they can help make decisions about an area or device that can be shut down, and immediately see the results of that energy reduction on the RMS dashboard.

THE FUTURE We’re also starting to integrate things at a much higher level; like POS systems and building management systems. What has traditionally been an AV control system will be able to reach out and bring more data in, making it more usable for administrators and staff.

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The Screening Process Dr Lior Rauchberger of Nuvo Solutions knows how to screen screens.

Having recently picked TVs for a 500-room refurbishment of Crown Towers his company’s latest commission is to choose over 120 suitable screens to populate Crown’s latest Westend projects. Dr Rauschberger is here to give you a few tips for your next big screen purchase.

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1. Make sure the screen won’t glare at you under bright lights.

The new generations of LED screens are very bright, and perform better than plasmas in environments that have a lot of ambient light. Glare is definitely a big factor that really comes down to the model. Different manufacturers and models of TVs produce different reflective surfaces. If a lot of sun will be hitting the screen you want to get the screen that has a more matte appearance. It’s a bit like when you would decide between printing a glossy or matte photo in the old days.

2. Be clear about your source when it comes to resolution.

How To Tell?

If glare is going to be a problem for a particular screen placement Dr Rauchberger recommends packing a torch. Shine it at the screen from a side angle, and compare the reflection between different screens.

Alternatively, if you’re seeing a lot of background objects reflected in the screen, it’s a good indicator that will happen in your venue too. The danger, he says, is that reflective screens look a lot better in an ambient light environment, like a demo room.

When counting how many pixels or dots are on the screen, it’s easy to get carried away. The important thing to consider is what the screen has to show. Any system is only as good as its weakest link. So if you’re only showing a particular source that has a maximum output of ‘x’, you don’t need to overspend on a screen that has the potential to play three times that.

And you can pay quite a premium to go to the highest number of pixels. In other words, you want to match up. Some are 1080p, some are 1080i, and what we’re about to see is the next resolution above 1080p. You can chase your tail a bit, so you’ve just got to be pragmatic about your choice.

Panasonic Powers Down

Mitsubishi Cat

NEC V651

Sharp & Bright

With home AV big screen prices getting smaller all the time, Panasonic has introduced a couple of new plasma displays that keep cost and power down. The 42-inch (TH-42PH30W) and 50-inch (TH-50PH30W) are available for $1199 and $1799 respectively. The panels also use 35% less power than their predecessors, while still delivering a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, a 100,000-hour life span, and a colour range that exceeds the HDTV standard. For digital signage wall displays, the Multi-Display function can enlarge images up to five times their original size while retaining uniform brightness, with other simple multi-display features accessible via remote.

Mitsubishi Electric’s MDT551S slim-line 55-inch LCD monitor is specifically designed for commercial applications and public display with its 17.5mm aluminium bezel and full HD resolution.

Connectivity is augmented beyond the usual ins and outs with the option to use a CAT5 transmitter/receiver pair that allows not only video, but also control data to be sent over the same cable. The display can be used to create a 25-display video wall, with flexible orientation and frame compression to take account of bezel width. It also comes in 42 and 65-inch models.

The 65-inch V651 commercial grade LCD from NEC is plump for service as digital signage.

It has a digital loop through, Tilematrix software inbuilt that allows video walls of 10 by 10 screens, Ethernet and RS-232 control and communication for easy remote monitoring, and an expansion slot for connection to NEC and third party components. The panel is full 1080p high definition and has built-in low-profile 10W speakers.

Sharp’s new 60-inch LED-backlight LCD (LC60LE630X) ticks the boxes for brightness. Delivering full high definition, with a 100Hz mode that reduces motion blur, the picture on this large panel is sharp. It has three HDMI inputs, a built-in HD tuner, and Aquos Link for control via a connected Aquos Blu-ray player. It’s not a commercial panel, but comes with a three year warranty and a retail price of $2499.

Sharp: 1300 135 530 or www.sharp.net.au

NEC: 131 632 or contactus@nec.com.au

Mitsubishi Electric: (02) 9684-7777 or www.mitsubishielectric.com.au

Panasonic: 132 600 or www.panasonic.com.au

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3. Choose commercially viable screens that go the distance.

You’ve got to be careful, I’ve seen a lot of residential panels installed in commercial premises. It’s fine because they’re clearly cheaper, but you want to be aware of how long it’s staying on for. Commercial panels are built to run a lot longer and you want to look at warranties in that regard. A one-year warranty may not be sufficient for a commercial application. Three years would be standard for a commercial panel, and in some instances you could extend it to five.

4. ‘Burning in’ is a hot topic for more than just plasmas.

With plasmas there’s a well-known issue that if you keep the onscreen image static it can burn into the screen. But the perception out there is that it can only happen with plasmas and if you get an LCD screen it’s not relevant, but it is. It does take a lot longer to burn an image into an LCD, however it remains a risk. You want to make sure that you have a screen where the source or the screen itself has a screen saver that’s appropriate, and that maintains motion.

5. It’s time to think smart.

If you’re going down the digital signage path, in order to be cost effective with the cabling infrastructure look for screens that can loop signal out of one and into another. Another factor to consider is whether the processing of the video wall or digital signage is within the screen, which can also cut down costs. And we’re going to be seeing an increase in ‘Smart TVs’. All the residential vendors have got on the bandwagon of promoting ‘Smart TVs’ that are internet-enabled and connected directly into the network. And that’s certainly going to be more of a factor commercially as well. Because at the moment we’re still running a lot of cable and generally some type of media player or set-top box that sits at every TV. The next stage of evolution will eliminate all that middle hardware, and everything will be streamed from a central server straight to the TV.

ON THE BIG SCREEN Orion MPDP The Orion Multi Plasma Display Panel system is almost infinitely expandable to a massive 225 sets. And the seam between each 42-inch panel is a miniscule 1.9mm. The panels use a very robust phosphor, combined with the Anti Burn-in system, it minimises colour deterioration and burn-in effects.

It also features an anti-glare front filter. Using the DVI converter, the MPDP system provides a simple way to convert and manage the signal from different devices, supporting resolutions up to 1080P. And the Auto White Balance package provides an easy way to get a consistent look across the entire video wall.

TR Vidcom: 1800 843 266 or www.trvidcom.com.au

Samsung Big BLU Samsung’s HE, ME, UE and UD Series of Samsung displays all incorporate LED backlight technology. The backlit unit (BLU) technology delivers uniform brightness levels with lower power consumption — 30–50 percent reduction compared to conventional CCFL-backlit LCD displays. And with the ME and UE Series clocking in at a 120Hz and 240Hz refresh rate, respectively, it makes for much smoother scrolling text and reduced motion blur in digital signage messaging. The displays feature ultra-thin bezels, making displays easier to hang in more locations than ever before.

Samsung: (02) 9763 9904 or www.samsung.com/au/lfd

Sony’s Sign of the Times The Sony VSP-BZ10 is a dedicated IP-addressable digital signage player, capable of displaying Full HD video, still images, scrolling text and audio.

Content is stored locally on an SD card and is easily distributed to each player via a network or USB flash drive. The VSP-BZ10 includes easy to use software, which controls up to 10 players allowing for a simple yet very powerful setup.

Sony Australia: (02) 9887 6666 or pro.sony.com.au

Seamless CIMA Displays

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CIMA’s 60-inch expandable plasma solution reduces the seam size between pictures to under 3mm. The bezel size of each screen is an incredibly low 1.4mm, that’s the thickness of a credit card. The CP-60DMH model can be expanded to any size tile formation. CIMA’s solution also boasts a way of coping with burn-in by memorising the location and brightness of the area, and compensating images to display a clear picture. The screens also quote 600Hz operation and a 0.001ms response time to reduce any motion judder effects.

CIMA Digitec Australia: (02) 9438 3913 or info@cimadigitec.com.au

PROJECT THE RIGHT IMAGE The Bright Spark

Short But Sweet

Tiny Terror

Full HD projector developed for the pro market that uses Sanyo’s QuaDrive engine to achieve a ‘best-in class’ brightness of 7000 lumens with just a single lamp. The PLC-HP7000L produces 1920 x 1080 resolution and full 10-bit video processing, with exceptional colour reproduction in a portable package designed to provide operators with high reliability and low operational cost. Price: $15,999 RRP.

Hitachi has focused in on the short throw projector market, and the iPJ-AW250N continues that trend. The projector has 1280x 800 resolution, and can project an 80-inch image only 56cm from the wall. It’s easily maintainable with a topside lamp door, and filter accessible from the rear. It has a 2000:1 contrast ratio, HDMI, USB and Ethernet inputs as well as analogue video and audio inputs. And can also be purchased with an optional wall mount unit, that can perfectly position the projector with two major adjustments and six fine controls.

The Epson MG-850HD is the go-anywhere projector. It’s a high-quality, high-brightness projector, equipped with 10W stereo speakers, and a built in iPod dock. With a 2800 lumens output, 3000:1 contrast ratio and 1280x800 WXGA resolution, it can be used pretty much anywhere.

It also features USB plug ‘n’ play instant setup for Mac or PC slideshows, as well as HDMI and VGA inputs. Pretty much all the bases covered in this small portable projector.

Price: $1199 RRP.

Sanyo Oceania: (02) 9815 5822 or www.sanyo.com.au

Hitachi: www.hitachi.com.au

Epson: (02) 8899 3666 or www.epson.com.au

GRANDE CANAL DESIGNS Venetian hotel Palazzo Barbarigo turns a blind eye to luxury stereotypes.

Story: Heather Barton

T

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o be part of the Design Hotels group you must have a compelling tale to tell. The group, founded in 1993, represents and markets a curated collection of some 200 independent hotels in over 40 countries across the globe. Founder, Claus Sendlinger, based in Berlin, said, “We see the group as more than a collection of hotels, we see it as a collection of stories.

“Each property reflects the ideas of a visionary hotelier, someone with a passion for genuine hospitality and cultural authenticity, for thought-provoking design and groundbreaking architecture.

“We don’t have a checklist of qualities that we look for — it’s more about whether the ideas and visions of the people behind the project fit with ours. There is no fixed formula and it is not just about the design, rather it’s all in the concept. Does it make sense and does it connect to its locality? A successful concept is more than just the hardware. It’s in the ‘software’, so to speak. It’s all about creating a unique experience, which contributes to the success of a hotel.”

BREAKING THE CHAINS Capturing the calm, silvered reflections along Venice’s Canal Grande, Palazzo Barbarigo is the creation of one such ‘il-

luminated visionary’, Stefano Ugolini, Director of the Hotelphilosophy group.

Born into the hotel industry, Ugolini decided not to follow well-established hospitality trends. He said, “I felt the need to liberate luxury hotels from the stereotypes, mostly dominated by hotel chains.

“I didn’t ask for advice about which way to go,” he explains. “I just went with my gut. I love hotels with strong, individual personalities. Once my guests have experienced one of our hotels, the goal is for them to want to experience them all.”

Ugolini’s Palazzo Barbarigo, one of 12 Italian hotels in the group, does so by telling a story of redemptive restoration through the right degrees of restraint, risk and a lack of inhibition to evoke what Ugolino calls “the mystery, melancholy” and even “malice” of a place with a history as complex as Venice.

Dating back to 1569 and located next to Palazzo Pisani-Moretta, close to the Ponte di Rialto and Piazza San Marco, Palazzo Barbarigo had been stripped of its original interiors over the centuries. In refurbishing Barbarigo, the design team has created what Ugolini refers to as a ‘mise-enscene’ that unfolds from the foyer into the spaces beyond by reinterpreting the palazzo interiors in a sequence of silhouettes.

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“I felt the need to free luxury hotels from the stereotypes, mostly dominated by hotel chains”

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The design concept, inspired by the branch of art deco that combines decorative and neoclassic elements, creates a refined rather than austere ambience reflected in many ironic, at times, frivolous and unusual details.

Hence, the playful illusions of over-sized furniture; of consoles that emerge from large antique mirrors in shared areas and of the plays on perspective provided by the illuminated display cases that also function as dividing walls.

ON REFLECTION Accessible only by water, the reflections of which are multiplied by mirror-covered interior walls, the Palazzo opens onto two grand salons from a private dock off the Canal Grande. The first eight rooms, of the hotels 18, unpack like set pieces across this level.

The second floor features another grand living and bar area, and a hallway leading to the rooms terminating in the library, of which the coffered ceiling, together with the fireplace, are the palazzo’s only original elements. Although the oak parquet floor — recovered from antique barrels originally from Istria — would have you second guessing. The trademark Venetian blinds in the breakfast room are also in oak, which complements the general palette of grey tones with scarlet notes, found in everything from the room numbers in steel grey Parapan, the dark marble, and the lacquered finishes of the furniture.

The hotel offers six deluxe junior suites overlooking the Canal Grande and 12 rooms facing a side canal. Inside, the rooms are an enchanting affair; a chaise longue, loveseats, a glass bar back-painted black, and headboard covered in a gauze bearing the traditional Fortuny Venetian design. The same design is silkscreened in black framing the bathroom mirrors, which sets the scene for an over-sized bathroom with double showers featuring illuminated showerheads and Corian sinks.

The Pallazzo Barbarigo is a contradiction of grandeur and intimacy — a small, seductive, set-piece ideal for engaging in the theatricality of Venice, especially during Carnevale or the Bienale.

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CONTACTS Mim Design (Interior Design & Fitout Documentation): (03) 9826 1266 or info@mimdesign.com.au Dinnage Group (Building Fitout Works): (03) 9555 7111 or info@dinnagegroup.com.au Probuild (Mural Hall Restoration): (03) 9693 8222 or www.probuild.com.au Temperature Design (Ottoman & Sofa Manufacturer): (03) 9419 1447 or www.temperaturedesign.com.au Rakumba Lighting (Lighting Manufacturer): (03) 9579 2355 or sales@rakumba.com.au Warwick (Upholstery Fabrics): (03) 9419 7544 or info@warwick.com.au Grant Dorman (Casa Mia Prague & Claire 76 Chair): (03) 8525 8825 or www.grantdorman.com.au Victoria Carpets: (03) 9794 5855 or sales@victoria-carpet.com.au The Buchan Group (Executive Architects for Myer): (03) 9329 1077 Lovell Chen (Heritage Architects): (03) 9667 0800

Myer’s Mural Hall survived the emporium renovation, and the art deco gem has been polished up for her re-entrance into high society.

Story: Mark Davie Myer Mural Hall (The Big Group): Level 6, Myer Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC (03) 9661 1546 or www.muralhall.net.au

I

t’s November, and already Christmas time at Myer. Parents are queuing up with their kids at this year’s yuletide window displays.

The tinsel is out, and Santa’s little elves have set up shop right outside Sidney Myer’s original art deco, high-society meeting place, Mural Hall.

MAKER’S MARK Mural Hall was a sticking point for Myer when it rebuilt its flagship Bourke Street store. What to do with a heritage-listed piece of art deco history on the sixth floor of a department store you’re attempting to kickstart into the modern age? Another art deco building, Lonsdale House, bit the dust to make way for the new $300m emporium, but Mural Hall’s heritage listing precluded it from suffering a similar fate.

Even though floor space commands an absolute premium in retail, it is hard to see Myer ditching Mural Hall to make way for a few more tellies.

After all, it’s one of the few remaining physical legacies of its founder and philanthropist Sidney Myer. It was his idea to build a world-class function space in Melbourne, simultaneously cementing the Myer department store as ‘the’ place to shop.

“He used to travel the world a lot in the late ’20s and early ’30s. He’d seen all the big ballrooms in Europe and The Americas and he wanted that for himself,” said Bruce Keebaugh, Director of The Big Group. “So he built Mural Hall under the auspice that it would be somewhere for the community to come for philanthropic events. But it was also a dining room.

People would come here for high tea and a restaurant called The Grill.”

Without Mural Hall, the sole remaining landmark representative of Myer’s taste would be the offsite Sidney Myer Music Bowl, which arguably only reflects on the man and doesn’t contribute to the department store’s credibility as a Melbourne institution. Mural Hall serves to maintain Myer the brand’s connection with Myer the founder, at his most glamorous.

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HANDOVER THE GOODS Myer gave the old gem a spit and polish — courtesy of Probuild’s centimetre-perfect refurbishment — and handed it over to The Big Group, who knew exactly how to handle the historic centrepiece, which can seat up to 550 patrons. Over the last quarter century The Big Group has staged the odd function at Mural hall, but not much more. “We used to do the odd bit, like Cate Blanchett would come out and we’d do a dinner for her or there’d be a bit of a parade, but not all that much,” said Keebaugh. “In the ’70s to ’90s the world was more interested in modernism, not ‘that daggy old hall’.”

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FORMER GLORY With the hall returned to its former glory, and the costly but necessary addition of modern rigging, the only thing left was to institute some sort of pre-function area.

Running down one side of the hall is an entirely new space, previously an old hairdressing salon and the staircase entry to Myer’s toy department. Now it’s a glamorous pre-function cocktail lounge that Mim Design has rendered in a more contemporary fashion than the hall, though not overtly so.

“We have another space in South Melbourne, Luminaire, that is very contemporary,” said Keebaugh. “So our feeling was we needed to honour the heritage nature of Mural Hall and the marketplace we were looking at for this business was calling more for reflection than about modernity.”

The lounge is full of champagne velvet wingback sofas, generous classic lounge chair designs and oversized floor lamps arranged in a series of lounge pods running down one side of the space.

Across the thoroughfare, a fluted bar front is flanked by laser cut screens and shelving that hold an assortment of crystal vases.

The challenge for Mim Design was to develop a series of custom-made furniture pieces that would work equally well in both the extravagant art-deco hall as well as the classic contemporary lounge. The other trick was to design pieces that could scale up or down, to both match the generous height of the hall, and low ceilings of the lounge. Large circular wooden tables and elongated consoles with mink-stained solid timber bases and stone tops were designed as feature pieces for the hall, and the large Carrara-topped champagne tables with softly curved bases and circular button banquettes provide a sense of proportion.

The touch of classic modernity somehow takes the edge off the period nature of the hall, while still matching in with a colour palette inspired by its heritage elements. Decorative rolling screens to section off private areas or to serve as backdrops work seamlessly with the custom furniture to create a workable, intimate environment. They’re all functional pieces The Big Group can rearrange for different themes or appropriate for use. For instance, the elongated consoles not only serve as a depository for empty glasses, but can be wheeled out from the wall and function as a bar or food servery.

SINK RIGHT DOWN INTO IT Mural Hall now sits like a jewel in Myer’s new crown. And to get a glimpse of how the glamorous gem fits in, you need only imagine the place at night, when the lights are dimmed, Santa’s off logging naughty or nice entries, frazzled shoppers have retired for the day — all that remains is the childlike nervous delight of Melbourne’s gussied up social elite as they sashay through abandoned aisles bathed in the flickering light of flat screens. It’s romantic and nostalgic all at once. Which is what The Big Group are trying to do, bring back some of the glamour to Mural Hall.

“When we looked at this business we spent a lot of time in the archives of the State Library going through old menus and found the most incredible things,” said Keebaugh. “In those days food was all about France and very formal. We found a dinner that was tendered for Mr. Norman Myer, Sidney Myer’s nephew, after he had been overseas. Which in those days wasn’t a weekend trip, you went for years. On opening night we replicated that dinner for a couple of hundred people, but the menu was really interesting because it came from The Titanic… we were sinking on the first night!” Thankfully, all is going swimmingly.

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PRIMING MURAL HALL Sidney Myer was a raging philanthropist. His deeds included a Christmas dinner for 10,000 unemployed during the depression. Saving his staff from unemployment by reducing everyone’s wages, including his own. Leaving one-tenth of his estate to continue his legacy, and an immeasurable level of personal donation. He also liked a party. Mural Hall was built in 1932, and noted by the National Trust as ‘one of the finest Art Deco interiors in Australia’. But most notable of all are the murals. Here’s a primer from Bruce Keebaugh into how Mural Hall became a mural hall.

Keebaugh: “Myer built the ballroom and he wanted it to be decorated in some way. He came across an artist called Napier Waller who had been a war artist in the First World War. They didn’t have CNN and iPads, so he was painting scenes of the war to send back so people could see what was actually happening on the battlefront.

“Poor old Waller got shot in his right arm, which was his painting arm. Then he came back to Australia as an injured artist and started to relearn how to paint with his

left hand. Waller painted all the murals you see in Mural Hall with his left arm. He also has work at Café Florentino (now Grossi Florentino) and in Canberra.

“He painted 10 murals and all of them pay homage to the seasons, and to women and their achievements. Waller paints in this tumbling fashion. At the top you’ll see a woman in her Elizabethan gown, then a woman in her 17th century pompadour hair and make-up, down to the women of the late 1920s early ’30s with short hair, smoking a cigarette, décolletage out, and all sophisticated. He was trying to show the power of women. Sidney Myer of course adored it because his best clients were women.

They were the ones buying fur coats.

“The murals became a very significant part of Mural Hall and during the ’50s and ’60s Mural Hall was used by the Myer business quite extensively. After the war, fashion was going to a broader class. All of a sudden fashion was for everyone and there was wealth again. The first collections of Christian Dior, amazing parades and parties — all sorts of wonderful events were hosted here.”

Classico Caesarstone

Dulux World Of Colour

“We have seen an on-going shift from simple monotone colours to more subtle two or three colour blends in natural design structures and scale in neutral, classic base colours“, says Andrew Dixon, Caesarstone Australia Sales and Marketing Manager. To keep up with nature, Ceasarstone’s Classico collection has added five new designs. The complex additions include Ocean Foam, a whiter white on a blended fine quartz structure. Crème Brule and Wild Rice both use a gentle mix of varying quartz sizes to delicately integrate colours, Shitake is a blend of white and darker mushroom tones, and Cocoa Fudge is a rich chocolate brown colour. The range is perfect for bench tops and splashbacks, custom made furniture and bathroom wall linings.

Dulux has introduced a whopping 245 new colours to its improved World of Colour atlas and fandecks, with four brand new tools for designers, architects and specifiers At the core of the professional specifier’s tool kit is the Atlas, showcasing 4560 colours in new sections of Whites and Neutrals, Bolds and Brights, Greys and Pastels, and Dulux Colours of New Zealand, which is more than just Kiwi. 50 new colours have been added to the Fandeck, while two new standalone Fandecks have been added: a Whites & Neutrals Fandeck featuring 160 shades of whites, and the locally inspired Red Heart Blue Shore Fandeck debuting 90 new colours. “One of the key outcomes from our research was the brand new Red Heart Blue Shore Fandeck, offering colours that are truly Australian, inspired by the passions and places that colour Australia, from Mukinbudin to Merimbula, and cricket to the great Aussie backyard,” said Dulux Australia Marketing Manager Colour, Gavin Gilligan.

Caesarstone: 1300 119 119 or www.caesarstone.com.au

Dulux: 13 23 77 or www.dulux.com.au/specifier

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commercial edge

Stone Laminex

Vectron Flatscreen POS

Laminex 180fx is a collection of premium decorative surfaces designed with the true scale of marble and natural stone, combined with the practical advantages of laminate. Laminex has gone with six stone patterns — Carrera Marble showcases charcoal and light tonal grey veining against creamy white, Silver Travertine is a linear grain with a lighter hue, Soapstone Sequoia crisscrosses misty warm and cool greys, Slate Sequoia has browns, ivories and subtle green veining, Brecca Paradiso is a bold dark marble pattern, and Black Fossilstone mirrors dark seabed fossilisation. The collection comes in a combination of four Matt and five DiamondGloss finishes with matching acrylic edging to create a seamless stone slab look. It also comes with a seven year limited warranty.

Vectron’s latest flat screen handheld POS delivers a full ordering system to all areas of your venue. The stylish unit has no edge effect and has an easy to clean surface. It has Vectron’s full Mobile POS software onboard to let staff take and input orders into the system on the floor, automatically routing orders to the kitchen via Bluetooth. It helps to eliminate room for error. And with the 4.3-inch touch screen it’s able to run the same touch screen and logic as Vectron’s main POS terminal, meaning that trained staff can be up and running with the technology in no time.

Laminex: 132 136 or www.laminex.com.au

Vectron: (03) 9328 8222 or www.vectron.com.au

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issue forty seven 2011 Pl antation New Brighton Hotel Th e A - Z o f AV

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Sound, Control & Screens 47

page 45

The A-Z of AV NEW BRIGHTON HOTEL LOOKS NEW AGAIN

Fitzrovia Mural Hall Ruby Rabbit Palazzo Barbarigo

+ More $9.95 inc gst

page 42

9 771832 143005 9 771832 143005 47

HOTEL NEW BRIGHTON AGAIN NEW LOOKS

page 42

$9.95 inc gst

Sound, Control & Screens

54 egap

The A-Z of AV

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Palazzo Barbarigo Ruby Rabbit Mural Hall Fitzrovia

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VA f o Z - A e h T letoH nothgirB weN

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The Beach Hotel - Albert Park Mansions - Adelaide Woolshed - Docklands.

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The Intelligent Sound System

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www.jbn.com.au 0409 931 704 sales@jbn.com.au

Twister, Ukraine

66

You Wish

There used to be a Twister in Melbourne, an underage dance party near Luna Park perfect for young chicks. Twister in the Ukraine is pretty much the same, although here they coddle their chicks, keeping them nice and cosy in the nesting bar, surrounded by twiggy walls and coniferous furniture before sending them off to the precipices to take a leap of faith. Designed by Serghii Makhno and Vasiliy Butenko, Twister comes in two parts, the aforementioned cosy cocoon of a bar with real wooden sticks glued to the walls and ceiling, and the double-height restaurant with Jetson-like pods in the shape of twisters making up the top level, with raindrop pendants strung up from above completing the natural phenomenon look. Makes for a pretty phenomenal look.

STRATOS. M A D E I N I TA LY. E Q U A L LY AT H O M E H E R E .

11 COLOURS · 4 BASES · 4 UPHOLSTERY OPTIONS · FROM $194.00

MELBOURNE · SYDNEY · BRISBANE · 1300 888 434 · CHAIRBIZ.COM