Venue #57 by Alchemedia Publishing

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ALONE? YOU’RE SOAKING IN IT

omewhere in some celestial rulebook of life it is written: thou shalt not drink alone. And yet there you are, alone, sipping forlornly at a light beer or white wine… a glass of something ‘inconspicuous’ anyway, because you know what the bartender is thinking: ‘Drinking alone? Isn’t that, like, AA’s first sign of dipsomania?’ Yes, it’s right up there with chugging a mug of gin before breakfast. You’re drinking alone and you know it’s not a good look. As you shift uncomfortably on your barstool — just in case a proper group of people needs that booth or table — you can feel a dark cloud rolling in around you, it’s your very own mizzling microclimate of melancholy. You’re certain everyone sees it. You’re sad, unsociable and desperate; a pathetic individual spurned by your mates, if indeed you ever had any. Quite possibly, you’re one step away from scrawling a ‘goodbye cruel world’ note in your own blood. Meanwhile, all about you, in stark, rude contrast, are funloving couples and parties too busy ‘having a blast’ to even cast a pitying eye in your direction. As they throw their heads back in laughter, flirting carelessly, and fixing each other with life-affirming stares, you can imagine the whole room turning as one, accusingly; mockingly; making the capital L with hands to foreheads, the universally recognised social shorthand for the hopeless basketcase that you are — Loser. What a load of baloney. Absolute tosh. Enjoy your drink. Relax. In fact, if you’d prefer to be alone, then even better. But one thing hotels and licensed clubs are realising is that more and more of us are dining and drinking alone. And they’ve got our ‘back’. As you’ll see this issue, clubs and hotels are doing their best to provide experiences. Yet, experiences are hard to come by when you’re flying solo. So here’s the challenge: designing communal areas, foyers, bars and TABs that encourage chance encounters and allow friendly staff to help ignite some kinda ‘experience’. And, no, we’re not necessarily talking about experiences of the romantic kind — welcome as they may be for many — but simply allowing those who are flying solo to feel part of something; something interesting, open and inclusive. Which leads me to the other word du jour, that drives much of the design and the experiences that arise from people ‘rubbing up’ against each other: authentic. Authentic is about being real. And ‘real’ doesn’t emerge fully formed from the chrysalis of flat-packed bar theming. It comes from heritage, pedigree and personality. Bling is ephemeral. And at times — if you’re after a fling or a flutter — bling might just be the ticket. But those encounters don’t truly satisfy. Humans crave real connections and authentic experiences. You’ll find that the best in club design is now beginning to turn its back on the ‘Jackpot Gold Eldorado Ace Rush High’ school of junior casino aesthetics and moving to a look and feel that encourages punters to linger. Hotels have, for some years now, identified the growing demand for experiences. As I write this editorial, Hilton has just launched its Curio brand, which is similar to Accor’s M Gallery marque or W Hotels by Starwood or Andaz by IHG. Individuality is prized. Chance encounters are encouraged. And, sure, drink alone. Or at least, you’re welcome to try. You might just find your venue manager has other ideas. Christopher Holder, Editorial Director, chris@venuemag.com

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CONTENTS July 2014 No 57

Citadines Perth

When we took the walls down, we really didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what we were going to find. That was really scary. All bets were off. The Royal Hotel Paddington.

The Pullman Hotel Albert Park

Hotels

18 Hotel Hotel, Canberra 24 QT Hotel Canberra 28 The Pullman Albert Park 30 Hotel Lindrum, Melbourne 31 Citidines Perth 32 The Schaller Studio, Bendigo 14 Design Brief, Glenn Cornelia — Metier3 16 Design Brief, Susan Standring — Hassell CONTACTS: Advertising Office: (02) 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086

Editorial Office: (03) 5331 4949 PO Box 295, Ballarat, VIC 3353

Clubs

36 Kedron-Wavell, Brisbane 40 Warilla Bowls, Shellharbour 44 Arana Leagues, Brisbane 46 Cronulla RSL, Sydney

Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@venuemag.com)) Publication Director: Stewart Woodhill (stewart@venuemag.com) Publisher: Philip Spencer (philip@venuemag.com) Art Direction & Design: Dominic Carey (dominic@alchemedia.com.au) Graphic Designer: Daniel Howard (daniel@alchemedia.com.au) Circulation Enquiries: (subscriptions@alchemedia.com.au) Accounts: Jaedd Asthana (accounts@alchemedia.com.au)

48 The Royal Hotel, Paddington 52 Centennial Hotel, Woolhara 34 20 Questions, Rob Whyte — Aero Designs 58 Athaeneum Theatre, Melbourne 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 © 2014 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.

Regulars

11 Smooth Operator 12 Music Connection 54 F&F News 56 AV News 60 LX News 62 Preferred Suppliers 66 You Wish: 01NE Yas Island

RE GI

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PRO AUDIO • AUDIO VISUAL • INTEGRATION • LIGHTING • STAGING

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ALIA

e recently took over our next venue — a vast 140-year-old warehouse on Flinders Lane in Melbourne’s CBD. Over the next two years we will turn the beautiful old shell of a building into a pub. We’ve been working full-time on the plans for about a month now, but we haven’t even started to think about what it will look like, what it will feel like, what it will be made of. Instead, we’ve been focused wholly and solely on all those parts of the pub the punters will never see — back of house. If you’re like us, you don’t normally give a lot of thought to back of house — and you certainly don’t give a lot of space or money! Most of our venues to date have been traditional inner-suburban corner pubs. And that’s meant two things: first, there’s plenty of room to drive a delivery truck up, park beside the pub, and load. So we’ve never had a loading bay before — we’ve had a back door. And second, the layout of the pub has been pretty much locked-in for about 100 years. We don’t get to decide where the public bar will be, where the kitchen will be, where the coolroom, the toilets, the office or the storage will be. Over a century, and perhaps five to 10 renovations, these areas tend to have settled into the fabric of the building, normally with some form of innate logic: the coolrooms are in the cellar; the public bar is up the front; the office is at the top of the stairs. In the past when designing our pubs, we’ve focused firstly on the experience of the punter. What sort of place are we? How do we feel? Where do you eat? Where do you stand to watch the footy? We dedicate most of our time and budget to making the venue as good as it can be for our patrons. Even in our big pubs, with multi-million dollar renovations, like the Richmond Club, the Bridge and The Prahran, we renovated original coolrooms, kitchens and bars, rather than relocate and rebuild them. These pubs have a finite amount of floor area too — they’re old two-storey buildings, and unless you can afford to build new floors above the existing ones you have to work with what you’ve got. So there’s a constant tension between how much floor area we give over to the public, and how much we lock up for back of house. I can tell you — back of house always loses. So our venues always have tiny storage, small kitchens, inadequate offices, and they never, ever have staff rooms. I remember after our very first night of trade at our very first pub, I spent an hour searching for my business partner Doug. “He’s in the cash room,” I was told. That came as a surprise, cos I was pretty sure we didn’t have a cash room. And I was right — we didn’t. I eventually found him sitting on an old safe with a head-torch counting cash in a broom cupboard under the stairs. Years later, when you’d think we’d have known better, we opened the Post Office Hotel on Swan St Richmond with an office wedged into an old cleaner’s cupboard that was so small you couldn’t open the door while someone was in there without knocking them out. And a few years after that, when we absolutely should have known better, we had to hire a portable kitchen coolroom and park it in our manager’s driveway a few doors down from the Bridge, because our brand new kitchen coolroom was half the size it needed to be.

WORKING BACK TO FRONT But we’re slowly getting better at back of house. Our new pub in Abbotsford, the Terminus Hotel, will open in August with much more generous back of house spaces. We’ve decided to start from scratch, redesigning the old layout of the site to put loading, bins, kitchen, coolrooms and storage where they should be, rather than leave them where we found them. So now our kitchen is at the rear of the site, adjacent to the side road, so food deliveries can come and go directly into the kitchen coolroom and freezer. The keg coolroom is no longer in the cellar but at street level, so kegs can be rolled in and out quickly and easily rather than being dropped down and lifted back up again. That said, at the Terminus we’re still working within the confines of an old two-storey pub, whereas in Flinders Lane, while we’re keeping the original shell, we’re building a new building inside it, and that gives us much more flexibility as we set about designing a back of house that can really work. We’re more scientific about our requirements these days. With our architects we’ve worked through CAD plans of all our venues to calculate total floor areas per patron, then broken that down to a ratio of public area and back of house area per patron. Theory tells us that we only need a certain amount of public floor area per patron — any more than that is wasted because we’re building space that won’t be used. And at $3000$4000 per square metre, we can’t afford to build floor area we don’t need.

SCIENCE OF FLOW Back of house is different. While your license will limit how many punters you will have in your pub, there’s no limit to the increase in efficiencies in the way you serve those punters, to maximise the revenue you can take from each, and minimise the costs of taking it. Bar design is crucial to maximising takings. Three deep at the bar looks busy, but it’s not. Real busy is one deep at a much longer bar, with more staff and more stations and more tills ringing more often. We’ve also worked hard to create easy travel paths for our staff, to get them round the venue more efficiently. At the new site, staff will be able to enter from a rear door, travel up and down five floors in a goods lift to access the staff room, the office, the kitchen, the coolrooms, the liquor stores, the bars and the bins, without ever having to push past a member of the public. We’ve designed a staff-only walkway from the kitchen to the public bar so food runners don’t have to negotiate their way through a crush of 1000 people with four plates of food which are quickly going cold. We’ve even designed a hidden staff smoking area near the kitchen — not only is the sight of a chef in whites sucking on a fag on the street at the back door of a pub disgusting, on top of that we lose hours every week while chefs wander there and wander back. These initiatives all cost money. Every square metre of space we add to the build costs several thousand dollars. But try taking an extra five percent over your bar every night, while at the same time taking out one bussy, one chef, one food runner and one cellar hand from every shift over a year, let alone 40 years. All of a sudden a bigger, better back of house is worth every cent.

We’ve been working full-time on the plans for about a month now, but we haven’t even started to think about what it will look like

SMOOTH OPERATOR Back of House Counts Matt Mullins is a partner in Sand Hill Road hospitality group

Commercial music management is an intricate mix of art and science.

MUSIC CONNECTION Can Commercial Streaming Work for your Venue? Stuart Watters is a Director of Morph TV and consults for Nightlife Music

usic has the power to create a profound connection between a customer and a brand. This is something that I have written about countless times and, hearteningly, it’s a mantra that’s beginning to catch on. Recently, I attended Music Matters, an international music convention, held annually in Singapore. I was there representing Nightlife Music and we had a pretty simple agenda: to advocate the value that commercial music providers play in helping businesses create a powerful connection with their customers aligned with their brand. Music Matters was a great event. We were the only public performance commercial music provider from Australia and indeed the APAC region, so it put us in a unique position to have conversations with both the streaming services themselves and the various rights owners and representative trade bodies. Our hot topic was really built around consumer streaming models being used in commercial environments and given the launch of the Spotify Business/ Soundtrack Your Brand in Sweden that week, it was timely to discuss this with some global players. Many of our suppliers were there and while they were very supportive of the notion of moving to commercial streaming models, they did raise some concerns that end users of streaming services were perhaps stretching the boundaries of terms and conditions.

DOING IT IN PUBLIC There is an important distinction between using consumer streaming services and commercial music providers. All of the consumer streaming services, be they paid a la carte models like Spotify and Rdio or internet radio stations like Pandora, do not have the requisite licences in place for commercial use in Australia. There are very few examples around the world where this scenario is legally at play and, in the cases where it is, the price point and service model is structured very differently to reflect that commercial use and environment. We have seen a couple of instances where third parties utilise consumer streaming services as a back-end for commercial purposes without the rights. This is a worrying trend not only because of the obvious license issues but also because of the poor quality these adapted API services deliver. Across the board, most streaming services when used in isolation, do not work well in a public performance environment for a range of reasons. We did have some very good meetings with both Spotify and Rdio and it was encouraging to hear that they are very strict about what uses their services are being tied to but it is also clear they are poised to offer business solutions in the not too distant future. We have actually been leveraging off the back of their APIs for some time now to create experiential products that provide the missing link between what’s happening in the commercial public performance environment and pushing that to consumers via curated playlists and our clients are showing some very strong interest. There is a realisation of the value of playlists and many companies are indicating a keen interest to work with us given our 25 years of experience specifically creating bespoke configurations of playlists for commercial end users.

SPOTIFY’S COMMERCIAL PLAY Nightlife Music is 100% supportive of consumer streaming services and feel that they’re going to provide the much needed windfall to the music industry when the critical mass for users is achieved and the tipping point happens — which it will. Maintaining value in the commercial space is critical though as more and more consumer products flood the market and find their way into commercial spaces. We are obviously at the forefront of that ongoing conversation given the emphasis we place on music management and curation-driven playlists and how they can be applied to match the demographic and brand of a venue. The launch of Spotify Business/Soundtrack Your Brand is a good move on their part and demonstrates that Spotify is now really differentiating between a consumer service and a commercial service. They are most definitely heading on the right path but it will be an interesting exercise to see how they transition a population who are accustomed to using the consumer service over to a more expensive commercial model. The only way they will be able to do it is by offering music management and tools specific to the way music is used in commercial public performance spaces. Commercial music management is an intricate mix of art and science. The music needs to be dynamic and playlists need to be constantly refreshed. Most people on a streaming service have created a playlist but how many of them have returned to that playlist to refresh it? My guess is very few. The playlists remain static and unchanged, save for the occasional addition. You can only begin to imagine how awful that would sound in your venue with the same songs playing over and over. Alternatively, you can try to match an existing playlist to your venue but this is equally problematic because there are now more playlists than songs and there is still no guarantee they will be dynamic enough for your venue.

CURATION THE KEY Nightlife Music has teams of music programmers dedicated to ensuring the right songs are picked for the right lists, that those lists are in keeping with their intended theme, that the songs selected are appropriate for public performance settings, that the levels are normalised and that any accompanying visuals are not going to offend. In addition, every client has a dedicated relationship manager to ensure the right playlists are applied to their venue, in keeping with the venue’s brand and customer demographic. This relationship manager also ensures the scheduling of the music remains ‘on brand’ throughout the day because most venues have a dynamic range of customers at different times of the day and week. Nightlife Music also has a super-charged software development team which builds the last link that creates the all-important connection between human curation and computer playback. It is this level of curation and service that makes the Nightlife Music model sustainable. It allows for the music to change but keeps the style consistent and on brand. It is all about creating a musical connection that flows through from the venue to their customers. It is what we found re-affirming while in Singapore; it is why Music Matters.

DESIGN BRIEF Asian hotel design leads the world in ‘experience’. Story: Glenn Cornelia Metier3 Architects Associate Glenn Cornelia leads the design practice’s hospitality sector.

otels have evolved beyond cookie cutter conventions and are now exceeding stereotypes by experimenting with art, design and architecture. To remain attractive in an saturated market, hotels have expanded their offerings beyond the typical flat screen televisions and four fixture bathrooms. A hotel’s appeal has come to depend on its ability to make each guest’s stay memorable, to resonate with them on both a physical and emotional level. A hotel’s longevity is contingent upon this ability to captivate each new generation of traveller. As the hotel guest evolves so too must the industry if it is to succeed. However, satisfying these diverse and changing needs has become increasingly complex. Today’s guests are well informed, technically competent and aesthetically astute. Their tastes are more sophisticated and their expectations higher. Providing a superior service is no longer enough to separate one hotel from the next; they must also provide a superior experience. The struggle to meet these increased demands has caused hoteliers to question how, beyond providing a certain level of service, can they differentiate themselves from the competition and remain relevant now and in the future? The response has seen hotels engage architects and designers to conceptualisation and conceive authentic experiences that transcend the typical. Hoteliers are looking at architecture as a way to translate their vision, research and consumer insights into tangible designs that speak to the need for heterogeneous and increased levels of guest engagement.

Intuitive design can be understood as what distinguishes the Hiltons, Hyatts and InterContinentals of the world from the Holiday Inns. Their contrariety of qualities has seen these names become synonymous with hotels. These iconic enterprises have strategically incorporated the essence of their brand and core brand standards into each of their hotels with subtle changes made to accommodate specific geographic locations, markets and clientele, so while the individual hotel is recognised as part of this wider brand it is still distinctly unique. And so we see the future of hotel design as emphasising bespoke experiences that are grounded in local story lines. Advocating outof-the-box ideas, these designs challenge the imagination and the guests. The designs that will shape the hotel landscape of tomorrow are already in the making; we need look no further than the Maldives, Hong Kong and Shanghai for inspiration… With over 30 years experience in hospitality design, Glenn has realised projects throughout the Asia Pacific region and is now looking to the future for inspiration.

Today’s guests are well informed, technically competent and aesthetically astute. Their tastes are more sophisticated and their expectations higher

WALTER DISCUS HOTEL

Advances in ship design, deep-water production and the supporting technology are where the world is heading. Polish architectural and deepsea engineering company Deep Ocean Technology has inked a deal with Ridgewood Hotels and Suites to realise their futuristic underwater living concept: Water Discus Hotel. Just off the shore of Kuredhivaru Island in the Maldives, this part-underwater hotel will be based on the same two-disc concept slated for Dubai. The upper part of the structure will allow guests to take advantage of all that the local climate has to offer, while the submerged disc located 10 metres below sea level contains 22 hotel rooms and a bar where guests can immerse themselves in the marine life of the Indian Ocean.

HOTEL INDIGO HONG KONG ISLAND Some of the most fulfilling designs are those embedded in the local culture. Hotel Indigo Hong Kong Island is a dynamic addition to the fabric of Wan Chai, characterised historically by dense, low-rise buildings, which create a distinct pattern of sun and shade on the hotel’s elevations. Burnished bronze solar fins sweep around the crisp glazed façade, enhancing the pattern to look as though a dragon is wrapped around the building. This Chinese imagery extends to the dramatic glass bottomed cantilevered pool that sits atop the roof. The culturally rich urban environment of Wan Chai is captured in two ‘picture frame’ podium stone elevations that reflect the scale of the historic buildings through their abstract compositions. Layering the old with the new Hotel Indigo Hong Kong Island has sensitively introduced tranquillity and modernity to the bustling neighbourhood.

GRAND HYATT SHANGHAI Located on floors 53 to 87 of the Jin Mao Tower, The Grand Hyatt Shanghai Hotel is one of the highest hotels in the world, second only to its sister property, the Shanghai Park Hyatt, which occupies the 79th to 93rd floors of the neighbouring Shanghai World Financial Centre. The postmodern creation is an expression of Chinese architecture with the tiered pagoda emphasising the number eight with its 88 floors, divided into 16 segments, each of which is 1/8 shorter than its 16-storey base. The number signifies prosperity in Chinese culture and so too does the Jin Mao Tower signify the future of vertical hotels that perch atop of the clouds.

THE ANDAZ SHANGHAI The first of the Hyatt’s new line of boutique luxury hotels in Asia, Andaz Shanghai is an example of how a hotel brand can diversify its offerings and develop a new model that resembles its parent but has adapted in order to satisfy a new market and audience. Located in Xintiandi, a landmark entertainment area in the heart of downtown Shanghai, the 24-floor, 307-room luxury development responds sensitively to the district’s lowrise architectural fabric. Literally raising the standards of modern, high-rise buildings, The Andaz has received international acclaim for its restored Shikumen architecture. While the project has successfully integrated the local storyline into its innovative design, the hotel’s Western influence is evident in the customisable LED lighting in the bedrooms representative of departure from understated Chinese hospitality.

DESIGN BRIEF Sensory Design: Making Hotel Guests ‘Feel’ Susan Standring leads the international design practice’s hospitality sector.

believe the secret to hospitality success lies in a venue’s ability to evoke a strong emotional response and develop a true sense of connection with its guests. The world of hospitality is competitive. Thousands of new restaurants, hotels and bars open their doors each year and so too, many close. So what is the key to creating a thriving hospitality venue? For a new venue to be embraced, it must be more than just a place where people can stay or that has a great food and beverage offering. It needs to make guests feel at ease and comfortable and deliver a sense of theatre and engagement that will create a lasting memory. For designers, the starting point is to develop a deep understanding of the operator’s brand identity and culture and translate that into the local context. It’s only when a designer understands the character of the brand and community that they are able to create design a space that is functional, emotive and socially relevant. One such example is the Ovolo Hotel in Melbourne. As a boutique hotel for young, techsavvy guests, Ovolo speaks directly to its target audience by stepping away from the corporate feel of many inner-city venues and offering a quirky, fun experience full of surprises. Designing a hospitality venue that stimulates a sense of curiosity and discovery is vital to ensure guests will want to return.

START THE JOURNEY At Ovolo, the journey starts as soon as people walk through the door. Guests are greeted by a playful lobby space that uses a rich and contrasting palette and quirky lighting to em-

phasise unexpected elements of the design. A sense of curiosity and discovery continues to build as they move down dim corridors lined with brightly coloured doors and illuminated custom artwork. In the bedrooms, guests are greeted with fun details including chalkboards and pinball machines, continuing the sense of playful adventure and individual experience. Another important element is acknowledging and embracing the surroundings of the venue — creating a strong connection with its architecture, landscape, climate and culture.

SENSE OF PLACE The ParkRoyal Hotel Darling Harbour has achieved this through a design that reflects its location. While complementing the existing hotel brand — already well established in Asia — the light and airy interior embraces organic, curved forms and a vibrant fresh colour palette to reflect the natural Sydney surrounds of beach and bush. It evokes a sense of place, connecting with the locale and waterside location. The hotel caters to a diverse range of guests travelling for both business and leisure. As such it was important the design reflect the sense of excitement and adventure people have when exploring a new city for the first time. The varying nature of guests passing through the ParkRoyal Hotel necessitates the delivering of a world-class hotel experience that is able to meet diverse needs and expectations. We were keen for the venue to be adaptable and offer a range of spaces that meet a variety of needs, ensuring it doesn’t lay dormant. Underpinning all the creative and surprising design approaches, the design emphasises there is one element that remains fundamental to the success of any venue: regardless of how breathtaking the design is, it must always be functional and practical. The design has to support a smooth and seamless service offering, whilst also equipping staff with the facilities required to exceed customer expectations. This will ensure the experience measures up to the surroundings and respective brand reputation.

24 Moons Alumbra The Arthouse Hotel Australian Outback Spectacular The Bank Hotel The Botanical Bungalow 8 Brisbane Hotel (Perth) Club Marconi Discovery Establishment Half Moon Hornsby RSL Ivy Katuk Kudu Lounge Luxe Bar The Mean Fiddler The Met Oxford Art Factory Slip Inn

SEEING DOUBLE Hotel Hotel sounds like it’s doubling down on stereotypes, but rather, it’s the complete opposite. Story: Mark Davie Hotel Hotel: NewActon Nishi 25 Edinburgh Ave, Canberra (02) 6287 6287 www.hotel-hotel.com.au

t may have a repetitive name, but Hotel Hotel is doing everything it can to not come off like a traditional hotel — starting with its size. It occupies only the first three floors of one half of the Nishi building, which is situated at one end of the trendy NewActon precinct in Canberra. The Nishi building is the Molonglo Group’s flagship; part commercial, part residential with better energy credentials than Green Star can rate it. It even houses the wrapped-into-one Department of Climate Change, Environment, Industry, Science, Research… and whatever other innovations the government decides to shoehorn into its $150m lease. All of the floors above Hotel Hotel are residences, with the hotel managing 28 of them for longer stays. Every room in Nishi is different: Hotel Hotel itself has eight Cosy rooms; 43

standard rooms (which are still quite generous); 11 Creative rooms where everything gets upsized; and six top-flight Meandering rooms. While not the biggest component of Nishi, Hotel Hotel is the soul of the building. In a capital where you rarely stay stationary long enough to take in the sights, having a place to dwell is refreshing. The lobby isn’t grand in the traditional sense, but it’s expansive — a lair that can be accessed from all sides. The concierge and reception desks are the small hotel sort — capable, but not vast, or onyx. Lined with custom gluelam timber and backed by a concertina mirror, the desks rim the entryway rather than blocking it. Their placement lets you take in a big part of the Hotel Hotel experience in one sweeping gaze: the ski lodgeesque gas fireplace; its broad hearth surrounded by stacks of railway-style concrete sleepers ar-

ranged into banquettes; a comfortable reading nook full of design books; and a generous bar and communal dining area with tessellated, wooden parallelogram-shaped tables supplied by artists under Broached Commissions. Around the other side of the fireplace are more copper-topped tables and a mosaic wall of Gerard Havekes’ ceramic tiles.

MEET AT THE CAPITAL The lobby is intended to be a gathering place for that end of Canberra, attracted by free internet, a glass of water, and live jazz after work. “We’re very close to the Australian National University,” said General Manager Tracy Atherton. “We want the students to come in, and the commercial operators; we don’t want it to be that five-star lobby where people get intimidated walking in.” And

so far it’s working. On a quick survey, Atherton doesn’t think any of the crowd in her lobby are guests at all. There’s still a fair bit to come. Soon, the generous lobby will also function as a restaurant, though at the moment a pile of shifting vintage suitcases obscures the parse. A hair salon is planned in one of the adjoining spaces, while a pop-up boutique for designers was also running, but its future uncertain. Regardless, all through NewActon are a range of restaurants, bars, cafés, food stores, a day spa, and even the Palace cinema, so you’ve already got an abundance of choice. Melbourne’s March Studio (known for its Aesop store designs) designed the lobby area. It has an underground bunker feel to it, in the comforting sense of security that only heavy materials bring. The central light well is lit by porthole skylights

that poke through the garden above, and a re-approppriated 1930s chandelier taken out of an Italian railway station fills the space well. It’s difficult to break down the collaborations here, because everything fits together so well. Lighting specialists Point Of View has gently highlighted the Fender Katsalidis architecture, March Studio’s interior, and vintage pieces from aesthetic curator Don Cameron. While POV design director, Mark Elliott, and his team are still passionate about the quality of light from a halogen lamp, that kind of energy consumption was never going to pass muster in a green building like Nishi — so LEDs were first choice throughout. The brief given to POV was conflicting: on the one hand, the aim was to minimise the visual impact of light fittings — POV used integrated cove and joinery for a lot of the ambient lighting; but the commission also included clear instructions to not be too slick. A lot of the exposed concrete is exactly as it looked when the formwork was pulled off, with any non-offensive builder’s marks left intact. So rather than recess lights, POV developed a custom bracket for the surface-mounted spots that made them purposefully obvious. There’s no shortage of lighting apparatus in the rooms, with the control panels providing a good deal of dimmable diversity; but the whole scheme pushes the limits of darkness and functionality. It’s all about letting people look their best and a “sexy” nighttime experience, said Elliott.

DRAMA PLAYS A ROLE The dramatic lighting matches Don Cameron’s role as Aesthetic Curator hand in glove. Cameron — with a background as a music video and commercial director — is a first-time hotel designer, and an inspired choice for Molonglo Group directors and brothers Nectar and Johnathan Efkarpidis. Cameron treats each room like a potential dolly shot. The logic follows, if you’re tracking a shot through a doorway, your first impression shouldn’t be so workaday as a desk, but a piece of hand-selected art or one of the many reupholstered vintage pieces of furniture; a point of focus that immediately sets the scene. There’s a collection of makers and artists who provide interesting pieces: Amos Enders-Moje’s recycled bottle glassware is beautifully restrained; Kloke provided the staff’s wardrobe; and there are plenty more contributors you can find on Hotel Hotel’s website. The Meandering Rooms are Hotel Hotel’s flagship offering. Each is unique, but they eschew traditional suite designs for a winding layout, where the breakup of areas is achieved without room dividers. There are all kinds of finishes lining the different surfaces: matting at the bedhead; rough render walls; cabinetry and panelling of chipped Eucalypt with a wax coating (which translates loosely to ‘high-end OSB’); cast textured concrete hallway; raw concrete ceilings; and dark bulk-

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FOR SALE OR LEASE Element Bar and Restaurant 380 Harbour Drive, Coffs Harbour Jetty

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Located in the centre of the popular Jetty restaurant strip at Coffs Harbour Gateway to Harbour, Marina and Jetty Beach precinct Established by the current owners and first opened for trading in November 2013 Reluctantly offered for lease or sale due to partnership dissolution Establishment costs including freehold and fit out in excess of $2.3 million Fully equipped with first class fit out, over two levels, approx. 457 sqm Vacant possession – ready and waiting for new operator. Licensed for 300 patrons Two additional upper floors (294sqm). DA approved for rooftop bar and dining and licensed for a further 300 patrons – ready to develop • DA trading hours: 7am – 2am Monday to Saturday; 7am – 12pm Sunday • License Type: Liquor – Hotel License. Sub License: General Bar • Turnkey operation available on a walk in / walk out basis fully equipped

FOR SALE OR LEASE by Expressions of Interest with offers invited to be submitted by Thursday 10th July Contact Barry Booth 0417 695 899

heads concealing air-conditioning and LED lighting that stretch the entire length of the room. Bedside control banks allow you to select the desired mood lighting, night lights, blind controls, as well as buttons for Do Not Disturb and Make Up My Room. And an iPad allows you to check on Hotel Hotel’s room service offerings and search for who made that glassware. Fur covered chairs, curved red sofas, and distressed fabric wingbacks are just some of the vintage pieces you’ll find yourself sinking into. But the most sinking will be done in the generous stone egg-shaped bath. In the gloriously spacious bathroom, you’ll also find double basins, double rain showers and plenty of Aesop product to get you in a lather. The rooms are obviously put together by someone that understands luxury without cutting corners.

IT’S A PERSONNEL DECISION Cameron’s appointment wasn’t the only anomalous hiring decision at Hotel Hotel. According to one of the staff, the hiring policy isn’t to fleece other hotels of their experience, but scour other

industries for the cream, and train them up from there (in this case a Melburnian retail assistant remodelled into a convivial concierge). It means there’s a diverse range of experience that keeps Hotel Hotel from being a stodgy hotel experience. “We didn’t want it to be a five-star hotel where you check in and get a bit of attitude from the front desk staff,” explained Atherton. “We wanted to hire engaging staff, so we did casting calls with team-building exercises to see people’s personalities come out — you can train people how to use a computer system. For the key positions, they’ve gone with skill.” Atherton herself trained at the Hyatt, before spending 10 years with Aman Resorts in Asia, which has a similar environmental ethic to Hotel Hotel. Hotel Hotel is part of the Design Hotels Group, which not only provides the hotel’s booking back end, but also lets people know where the brand fits in the scheme of hotels. And don’t expect to find a lot of Aussie pollies in the lobby; the room tariffs are slightly higher than the government caps allow. Hotel Hotel is for ‘people people’ who want to experience the capital with a fresh outlook.

CONTACTS March Studio (Lobby Interior): (03) 9348 9199 or www.marchstudio.com.au Point Of View (Lighting & Audio): (02) 9810 0844 or www.pov.com.au Fender Katsalidis (Architecture): (03) 8696 3888 or www.fkaustralia.com Broached Commissions (Art): www.broachedcommissions.com Clear Design (Signage): (03) 9419 1400 or www.cleardesign.com.au Arup (Services Engineering): (02) 9320 9320 or www.arup.com Ultrafloor (Concrete Lintels): (03) 9932 7000 or www.ultrafloor.com.au Autex (Acoustic Insulation): 1800 678 160 or www.autex.com.au Cemintel (Cement Sheet): 1300 236 468 or www.cemintel.com.au Viridian (Glazing): 1800 810 403 or www.viridianglass.com Dorma (Sliding Doors): 1800 675 411 or www.dorma.com Supertuft (Carpet): (03) 9427 8600 or www.supertuft.com.au Sound Advice (Audio Install):

www.soundadvice.com.au Audio Products Group (Sound Equipment): (02) 9669 3477 or www.audioproducts.com.au

THE NEXT GENERATION IN INVISIBLE SOUND THE NEXT GENERATION IN INVISIBLE SOUND - Todd Ryan, Chief Speaker Engineer Sonance.

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0RVW Ă H[LEOH LQVWDOODWLRQ SURFHVV DFURVV D ZLGHU UDQJH RI FRQVWUXFWLRQ PHWKRGV LQFOXGLQJ EULFN FRQFUHWH DQG The IS4 C is for any commercial or residential settings where a 70 or 100 volt system is being used. The IS4 C features all the industry standard tap settings as well as an 8-ohm bypass. J\SURFN 8S WR PP RI Ă H[LEOH Ă&#x20AC;QLVKLQJ VXUIDFHV LQFOXGLQJ VNLP FRDW ZRRG YHQHHU YHQHWLDQ SODVWHU DQG ZDOOSDSHU The IS4 C is an extended bandwidth, wide dispersion loudspeaker designed for ceiling or wall 6HQVLWLYLW\ RI G% : PHWUH IRU PXFK KLJKHU VRXQG SUHVVXUH OHYHOV WKDQ RWKHU LQYLVLEOH VSHDNHUV mounting in commercial/professional installations in airports, hotels, boardrooms, cruise ships, SCAN HERE casinos, convention centers, restaurants, offices, houses of worship and retail stores. :LGH GLVSHUVLRQ RI GHJUHHV IRU JUHDWHU FRYHUDJH ZLWK OHVV VSHDNHUV )XOO UDQJH IUHTXHQF\ UHVSRQVH RI +] Â˛ N+] Â&#x201C; G% The IS4 C incorporates a polypropylene diaphragm that provides distinct woofer, midrange and 3RZHU KDQGOLQJ RI ZDWWV 506 tweeter radiation areas to ensure superior-quality sound in foreground music, public address

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POLITICIAN’S PLAYGROUND QT Canberra celebrates Canberra’s idiosyncrasies with a quirky style all its own. Story: Mark Davie QT Hotel Canberra: 1 London Circuit, Canberra ACT (02) 6247 6244 or qtcanberra.com.au

FEELING LUCKY?

The prohibition-era-styled Speakeasy bar, Lucky’s, is the perfect place to unwind. You can either enter from an external door, or — if you’re coming from within the hotel — through the barbershop. If you’re in need of a little sprucing up on your way through, you can park in one of the original 1920s barber’s chairs and get a trade-qualified cutthroat razor shave with a glass of cognac. Once through, there’s a central bricked bar and walls lined with Chesterfield-style banquettes. High cocktail tables, velvet curtains and Lee Broom’s recommissioned decanter pendants complete the look. It’s an offering unique to QT that you won’t find anywhere else in Canberra. Café Culture + Insitu (Lee Broom Lighting): (02) 9699 8577 or www.cafecultureinsitu.com.au

We had Amanda Vanstone in here last week and she just smiled, like, ‘Really? Are you guys serious?’

HL Group has been mining its best assets and refining them into QT hotels. QT Sydney is in the old Gowings building on George Street — stately heritage on the busiest street in Australia; a perfect cosmopolitan mix. On the Gold Coast, it’s smack bang on the main beach. And the new QT Canberra was previously Rydges Lakeside, a hotel carrying 30 years of history with it, and sitting in the middle of the nation’s capital right on Walter Burley Griffin’s prominent London Circuit carriageway. Technically, QT Canberra sits right on the edge of the revitalised/trendy NewActon precinct. In recent years, a number of top-class restaurants, hotels, cafés and cultural attractions have sprung up right behind its back, and bookending NewActon is the multiple Green Star Nishi Building hosting the progressive Hotel Hotel — not bad company to keep. AHL found itself in the right place at the right time, and rather than just basking in the glow of NewActon, decided to join in the game by rebranding the Hotel a QT.

BRAND QT The QT brand is quirky. It’s the antithesis of Rydges — irreverent, sensual and fun, instead of poker-faced and stolid. While a classic hotel brand like Rydges is defined by its sense of grandeur — meticulous facade, sweeping staircases, and wood panelling — QT has a personality you piece together bit by bit. Sometimes it’s more in-your-face: like a lifesize reprint of the current Government for photoops; or the more popular Obama peeking out from behind a curtain; then there’s the metallic Abbott/ Gillard/Rudd kaleidoscopic wallpaper; even the spy kit, emergency bow tie, and adult pack interspersed with the in-room consumables wink knowingly at you. But there are also more subtle sides to QT, like the speakeasy bar, Lucky’s, you access through a working barbershop, and the in-room Old Fashioned cocktail station. There’s even a members-only lounge most guests will never even know about, where the PM gets whisked in for private meetings away from prying public eyes.

BUILDING CHARACTER Ever since the first QT in Port Douglas, AHL has been building a team of collaborators that know the QT personality inside out and can help define its various character quirks specific to each city. At the team’s core is the architecture firm Nicholas Graham + Associates. Graham has been the perfect match for QT, devising different looks for each location. AHL has realised that one of the biggest draw cards for QT is food and beverage. Specifically, developing a flagship restaurant people will walk off the street for. The result is Capitol Bar & Grill, headed up by Director of Food, Robert Marchetti. In the morning, a central plinth puts all the fresh produce, baked goods and freshly sliced charcuterie on display. But there’s also a full hot breakfast, and cooked-to-order omelettes. It gets more serious towards lunch and dinner, when the same open kitchen fires up the grill and you can order from a mouth-watering selection of meat. There’s also a range of seafood, and all-year-round classics like ‘The “Capitol’s” Meat Loaf’ and ‘Pollie’s Pie’. Capitol’s spacious fitout maintains the darker tones of the Speakeasy bar, lifted by shots of red meat slicers, tan leather banquettes and pendant and spot lighting that highlights the food.

The final place that most won’t get to visit is the member’s only lounge on the 15th floor. While it’s a free membership, invitations are limited to about 300. With engulfing wingbacks and secret private lounges behind bookcase wallpaper, there are a number of places where you can have an ‘off the record’ meeting away from prying eyes and ears, or just enjoy the bar and the view.

ON THE BALL While much of the QT remodel has been about putting the brand’s personality on show, AHL has also taken the opportunity to reinvigorate the hotel’s conferencing systems. QT Canberra has the largest hotel ballroom in Canberra, capable of hosting 700 for a sitdown banquet, so it’s quite a drawcard. Every surface has been retouched, saying ‘goodbye’ to the timber panelling, and laying out new carpet and paint. But mostly the changes are centred around new food and beverage experiences, including ‘feasting’ menu concepts which General Manager, Paul Scott, promises will be quite different. At the rear of the property, there has always been a separate exhibition space, but QT has built a brand new rear deck to make a large breakout area. QT can even run full-blown alfresco events on a good night. Upstairs, the final piece of QT’s conferencing offer is attached to the members-only lounge. The L-shaped room overlooks London Circuit and can be divided into two, but this isn’t about squeezing people in — the two tables only cater for about eight to 10 people per meeting. The entire experience is designed to be top end — no sandwich platters, and definitely no filter coffee. “We’re trying to give the meeting a real adult experience,” explained Scott. “So we won’t do the normal muffins, and tea and coffee in the morning. We’ll do espresso, and you order lunch off the menu. The meeting sessions are more sophisticated and individualised, with a cracking view.”

POLLIE CRACKER Life-size pollie cutouts and metallic wallpaper aren’t the only ways you’ll find QT Canberra genially taking the mick. There are a whole series of cards, and in-room in-jokes designed by Fabio Ongarato Design to get a chuckle out of. As for whether the politicians themselves take it well? “Most of them do because the underlying message is we are celebrating politics,” said Scott. “There is a big smack of irreverence, but those guys are fairly robust; they cop it every day. We had Amanda Vanstone in here last week and she just smiled, like, ‘Really? Are you guys serious?’” In the lobby, you can purchase QT paraphernalia from under glass domes; they call it the QT-ique — stocked by one of Scott’s staff who scours the internet for quirky politics-inspired gear to hawk. One of the pieces is a solar-powered waving Queen. Scott thought they’d never sell a single one, but a bunch have flown out the door; showing that guests of QT are ready to embrace its quirks.

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PULLMAN PUSH Hotel Pullman Albert Park: 65 Queens Rd, Melbourne VIC (03) 9529 4300 or www.pullmanhotels.com/albert_park

What’s in a name? Well, as a hotel, quite a bit actually. Whether it be a Sofitel, Hyatt or Ibis or Budget, there’s an expectation. But what about a brand that means precious little to the market? Ah. Pullman is a four and five-star global Accor brand. The network consists of 77 hotels in 23 countries, with a Pullman hotel being modern, connected and relaxed with CBD locations as well as resorts. Until recently the only Australian Pullman was in the Sydney Olympic Park precinct. One of the 10 or so Australian (now-rebranded) properties is the former Albert Park Sebel. It, along with the likes of the Sea Temples in Queensland and the Sebel King George Square property were given Pullman status after Accor took over the Mirvac Hotels and Resorts portfolio. The Albert Park property had some serious cash lavished on it to completely refit the lobby, along with 169 guest rooms. An executive lounge and business centre has also been added. The Pullman Executive Lounge is a hallmark of every Pullman hotel, and is a thoroughly inspiring place to have a drink or snack, and do some business. With a recently refurbished ballroom (1200 sit down) and conferencing facilities (28 events spaces in all), the hotel remains one of Melbourne’s premier meeting and events venues. But

the refurb has given the property a real (stylish and modern) shot in the arm. Much of the staff remained during the refit and it was up to new General Manager Gillian Millar to ensure a smooth changeover and to delicately splice that Pullman DNA into the existing culture: “Initially, it was about instilling a mantra of what Pullman stands for. Terms such as ‘contemporary’, ‘friendly’, ‘modern’, and ‘relevant’ with wonderful service, but informal; relaxed. “It’s about altering the way we deal with guests. Getting alongside them — literally and figuratively; to avoid pointing but using open handed gestures. Each measure in and of itself may not sound like much but cumulatively, it amounts to a great deal. It’s a gradual shift but our team went through a transformation alongside the hotel. “We also have a Quality Assurance Manager on staff that can provide the independent eye a five-star hotel needs. They can identify potential problems and iron them out when one our team simply can’t see the concern as it’s all too familiar. “Accor as a group is doing a huge amount of work on its service and, with measures like this, you can see it’s all worthwhile. “The team is now very proud of the hotel we have. It’s inspiring to watch.”

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Citadines Perth: 185 St Georges Terrace, Perth WA (08) 9226 3355 or www.citadines.com.au/citadinesperth

Perth now plays host to Australia’s second Citadines Apart’hotel in Australia. The new Citadines St Georges Terrace has opened following an $5.1m and five-month refurbishment of the former Somerset St Georges Terrace Perth. The downtown property features a collection of contemporary art pieces by local artists Nick Stratham and Kyle Hughes in the lobby and apartments. Inspired by Perth’s skyline and bustling nightlife, the designers used a dark grey base with pops of crimson or yellow to arrive at a happy combination of calmness and contemporary chic into the property’s 85 studio and onebedroom apartments. Mr Kenneth Rogers, Ascott’s Regional General Manager for Australia and Indonesia, said: “Our Citadines on Bourke in Melbourne has been performing well with occupancy of over 80%. Bringing Citadines to Perth will enable us to strengthen our foothold in the city as demand for serviced residences remain strong from the

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resource and mining sectors.” Mr Rogers added: “The newly refurbished Citadines is an ideal home away from home for expatriates and business travellers. It has a vibrant design and features a comfortable living environment with a spacious apartment with fully equipped kitchen/kitchenette and unique living areas. Each apartment is equipped with modern amenities such as complimentary wifi, a home entertainment system with DVD player and flatscreen television with cable channels.” Ascott acquired the established Citadines chain of Apart’hotels in Europe in 2002 and brought the brand to Asia-Pacific in 2006. With the launch of Citadines St Georges Terrace Perth, there are 61 Citadines-branded properties in key cities globally. Besides Citadines St Georges Terrace Perth, Ascott operates Citadines on Bourke and Somerset on Elizabeth in Melbourne and Somerset on the Pier and Somerset on Salamanca in Hobart, in Australia.

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HEAR ME ROAR The Schaller Studio: Cnr Lucan & Bayne Streets, Bendigo VIC 1800 278 468 or artserieshotels.com.au/Schaller

A fast build needs a speedy artist. Well, if you’re an Art Series Hotel, that is, and your property is dedicated to the artist. Fortunately, Mark Schaller was able to adorn his namesake Bendigo hotel with the speed and enthusiasm he’s famous for. Around 200 original works populate The Schaller Studio, all whipped up in record time. Mark is a founding member of the Roar Studios in Melbourne — bold, fluent, unaffected by arty-farty BS. Not to say there isn’t depth and sophistication in his work, but there’s an immediate vibrancy that is a good match for the Art Series’ first foray into the ‘regions’. The Schaller Studio boasts 128 rooms, each packing 46-inch TVs, coffee machines, wireless docking stations, wifi, and microwaves. Each room receives an original Schaller touch (you can buy the artwork in your room for $4000). The Schaller rooms are small. Hence the ‘Studio’ branding. Apparently this was a subject of hot debate in the Art Series marketing meetings. But the distinction is clear: a Studio property has one-size-fits-all rooms and is a different proposition to the original Art Series properties. Will Deague is the boss of Asia Pacific Group (parent company of the Art Series Hotels), a building and construction firm. So it’s the Art Series’ MO to build its own hotels, and fit them

Hickory Group: (03) 9429 7411 or www.hickory.com.au

out using its own in-house design team. The Schaller was different. It’s a Hickory construction job. Hickory put together the constituent modules of the build in its factory. Will Deague elaborates: “The Schaller was originally built as a 240-room hotel for BHP in Port Hedland, but that project fell over. We took 128 rooms and we’re eyeing off the others. Each module comprises a room-corridor-room. You lift it off the truck, get it level, then slot/bolt it into place. They’re built already heat retardant, and sound proofed.” This process took a lightning-quick five days! From there Will and his team take care of the ground floor. The total build time was a paltry five months. “In many ways the quality of the finish is better. We’ll look at doing more.” And how’s the Art Series concept been going? “The key thing has been staying true to our vision. It’s what differentiates us from our competitors. It’s not hard to hang some artworks in a hotel, but no one is dedicating whole properties to artists.” And what’s next? Plenty. Another Studio offering is soon to launch in Parkville (The Larwill), a full-blown Art Series property will be open in Adelaide by the end of the year, two Brisbane properties are planned, and one in Box Hill, where Will is in talks with a prominent Chinese artist as a good fit for the suburban Melbourne location. Phew.

GOOD BREAK Hotel Lindrum: 26 Flinders St, Melbourne VIC (03) 9668 1111 or www.hotellindrum.com.au

Accor’s M Gallery range stands for: experiences and individuality. If it’s possible for a hotel to be ‘quintessentially unique’ and be the M Gallery’s international flagbearer, then I humbly submit that Melbourne’s Hotel Lindrum is it. Lindrum is definitely for the traveller wishing to travel the road less travelled. I know that’s a lot of ‘travels’ but bear with me. With only 59 rooms, it’s certainly ‘boutique’; is about as ‘storied’ as a hotel can be; it’s architecturally fascinating; and sacrifices a handful of new-build five-star comforts for the sake of maintaining its integrity. No, you won’t find an infinity pool on the roof; yes, it’s a pain to park; I agree, some of the rooms’ views of side and back alleys are less than stunning… but Lindrum fans wouldn’t swap it for all the tea in China; which coincidentally is what the hotel was originally swapped for. At the turn of the 20th century the building was commissioned by Melbourne tea merchants, Griffiths Brothers, and used as its new store and sales room for teas, coffees and cocoas. The building’s design reflected the red brick Romanesque Revival style popular at the time in Flinders Street and Flinders Lane, with a façade of decorative render bands, an upper-storey colonnade and giant arcade order with oriel elements. In the ’20s the building was subsumed into the inky black of newspaper printing/publishing until 1973 when it was leased

Bates Smart: (03) 8664 6200 or www.batessmart.com.au

to Dolly Lindrum and transformed into Lindrum’s Billiard Centre. Named in part for her famous uncle, the unbeatable Walter Lindrum, the billiards centre traded until 1988 after News Ltd, the new owner of the Herald and Weekly Times, took back the building to accommodate the offices of The Australian. News eventually relocated and the building was acquired and transformed into a hotel. And, in 1999, it was an entirely new concept in hotel accommodation, being amongst the first boutique hotels to enter the market. Now managed by Accor, the hotel has experienced a makeover, that has brought the rooms and amenities up to date. Bates Smart gave the guest rooms their new look. A neutral colour palette compliments the generous feeling of space. Stylish new features include the ‘Philosophy’ desk lamp by Tigger Hall Design that sits atop discreet workstations and Kravet’s ‘Grass Cloth’ wallpaper adding an element of texture to the overall design. New Samsung Smart LCD televisions and Philips Dual Docking station have been installed, giving guests access to the latest in technology. Custom-made mattresses tag team with bespoke bed heads dressed in silk chenille, all adding to a sophisticated touch to the rooms. There’s nothing ‘cookie cutter’ about these rooms or this hotel. Experiences and individuality.

uestions with

Rob Whyte, Aero Designs

Rob Whyte launched Aero Designs in the early ’70s with Ross ‘R.G’ Madden, and his simple yet unique designs have been a staple of Australian interior and office design ever since. I moved back to Australia in the early ’70s after practising architecture in the UK for 18 months. My first furniture designs were borne out of necessity: building furniture to furnish my house. Friends liked my timber furniture and commissioned me to make more. We’re not talking about ‘high design’, it was what we considered to be more sophisticated pine furniture.

I’ve dabbled at various times in ‘going international’. But the price for gearing up for success is just too great. We’d have to take manufacturing off shore. All the partnerships we’ve developed would fall by the wayside. Build quality and a product’s ability to fulfil a role is paramount — it can’t just look nice.

This was a bad time to be a young architect. Many of my university compatriots were re-training or driving cabs.

We sell a three-drawer under-desk unit. It’s not cheap at around $500 but the word has got around that it’s bulletproof.

I continued on in my small architectural practice and made furniture on the side.

Saying that, years ago before we changed the design to all-steel, we had a complaint from a business that had 20. I discovered the guys in the office using these units to shuttle the girls down the hallways — they were having races with my three-draw units! The castors were suffering as a result.

I ended up walking away from pine because the factory we were using was doing badly and began to steal our designs and sell direct to Myer. We moved to metal furniture. That was a pivotal move. We’ve largely been that way ever since. One of those early products was a metal bar stool. It was a hero product, we sold hundreds and it allowed us to explore other more adventurous designs. Back in the mid ’70s furniture was very basic. You had the likes of Berkowitz doing Australian-made, big, timber-framed leather sofas. You had the mid-market Moran-style furniture, while Myer would be selling Regency-style reproduction furniture. Design didn’t really exist at all.

They’re now all-steel and you could race elephants on these things. Is Australian manufacturing doomed? Inevitably we’ll have to go overseas to manufacture at some point. Only because we’re doing ourselves out of a job. I can make aluminium tables in Australia, but to paint them they need to undergo a process called chromating. No one in Australia can chromate something as large as a table. Aero has never tried to be in or out of fashion. I don’t think about it.

When Aero came along we were utterly without competition. Not to say our market was huge, but we had no competition at all.

We have a range of coat hooks with a pale blue version. We hardly sold one for a couple of years until now when pale blue is in fashion.

I don’t look at other furniture stores. We do what we want to do.

Our products will often evolve rather than be scrapped. If we’re sick of something we’ll tweak it.

I do go to Milan. Milan inspires me; and destroys me. There’s so many amazing designs there... it does make you feel insignificant. And the money spent at Milan by exhibitors is astronomical. The stakes are high, but the markets are so much bigger.

You have to stay true to who you are. Years back my business partner convinced me to incorporate cane into a design. I hate cane and we sold truckloads. But I told him we had to stop it. It’s not us, and its success will force us in a direction we don’t want to go.

Our Bop table: we sell, say, 10 a week from our stores in Melbourne and Sydney. Put that table into Europe and that 10 a week becomes 100 or 500 a week.

Those replica furniture retailers selling Chinese knock-offs just aren’t tolerated in Europe. I notice someone is making an Aero replica outdoor table. Couldn’t believe it.

I once liked a furniture frame I saw in Europe, so I asked the Italian manufacturer if I could have 50. How long would it take? Oh, half an hour. Half an hour! They make 50,000 items of furniture a week! Unbelievable.

Buy something new. Why buy a 40 year-old Eames chair? If you buy a 40 year-old car it’s for a specific reason and you pay the premium. I just don’t get it. Buy something new.

I had one of my step stool designs taken up by the Italian outdoor furniture specialists, Emu. At one point there is felt like every furniture store in Europe had one for sale.

Aero’s long-time Richmond store has been replaced by a new Aero Designs showroom on Hall Street, Hawthorn East.

BREATH OF FRESH AIR Big money; big results for this Queensland clubs heavyweight. Story: Christopher Holder 375 Hamilton Road, Chermside South QLD (07) 3359 9122 or www.kedron-wavell.com.au

he Kedron-Wavell club is at the top of its game: it’s big, it’s popular, people can’t stop throwing awards at it, and there’s a real buzz of activity around the place, reinforced by a multi-stage redevelopment plan. A hefty chunk of club dough has been invested in its front-facing Café HQ… $3.5m in fact. The build, completed last year, has increased the seating capacity of the cafe by 80 percent (to around 300 seats), presents an exciting, energetic facade to the world, and provides an expansive alfresco dining area.

project included an impressive external covered courtyard, a doubling of the seating capacity, a new kitchen area, a contemporary new bar and café servery, and a wine display, all enveloped in a striking, curvaceous vertical blade structure that dramatically invigorates the theatre of the entering the club. The rich and inviting décor, along with specialist lighting helps reinvent this oncetired café into a vibey destination by day and an sophisticated restaurant by night. The brief was to provide numerous dining experiences within the one offering. Diners can choose between a plush internal café, and more informal café space, a European-styled covered OPTIONS APLENTY outdoor courtyard, the timber-featured ‘Qube’ The club asked Paynter Dixon to manage the de- space available for private bookings as well as sign and construct, with KP Architects engaged different styled ‘spaces within spaces’ to enrich as the project architect. The main features of the the variety of experiences.

$3.5m WELL SPENT What do you get for $3.5m? Well, if you do it properly — engaging the right builder and architect — you stand to increase your F&B trade by a whopping 50 percent. Admittedly this is cannabalising some of the club’s other restaurant trade but that’s a nice problem to have. Russell Hickey is the Club’s Food & Beverage Manager. He’s been at the club for around seven years, coming on board initially as the Executive Chef. As you can imagine, he’s a happy camper. But the success has placed the spotlight on the rest of the club: “We’ve not undertaken any significant upgrades of the club for a some time, so the success of the Café HQ work has shown us just how desperately we need to upgrade more of the facilities; and, secondly, just how successful that sort of investment can be.”

And, as F&B Manager, Russell has immediately started reimagining the club’s other restaurants: “As we predicted the new Café HQ put our a la carte and buffet restaurants on notice. Café HQ took a lot of business away from our a la carte restaurant and to a lesser degree our buffet offering. Bear in mind, the a la carte restaurant was no slouch, it won a Clubs Award for Best Dining in 2012, but it copped a hiding. In fact, we’ve now closed the a la carte restaurant with plans to renovate it and alter its focus. We’ll redevelop it to offer a buffet as a base offering with a la carte options — a composite restaurant of sorts. “Once the a la carte restaurant has been redeveloped, we’ll start on the buffet restaurant. In the mean time, we’ve added some of the a la carte menu items onto the Cafe HQ menu, which has provided more options. It means that in a group

of six or eight someone can order a toastie for The seating options are comfortable and re$5 and someone else can order the 20-hour slow strained — “Clubworld can go a bit crazy with roasted ribs for $30. There’s flexibility there chairs but these won’t date” — and the tables use which people like.” a neat trick from Kon: “We use Marmoleum insets. It’s a great way of addressing the crash of GREAT OUTDOORS cutlery. In fact, the whole space works quite well Kon Panagopoulos, KP Architects principal, acoustically.” worked collaboratively with Paynter Dixon as the project’s architect and he too is an enthusiastic BEST ON SHOW participant: “Most spaces in Clubland are very in- HQ Café recently won the 2014 Clubs QLD Award ternalised/inward looking, so it was great to have for best club redevelopment over $1m. High fives all round. Certainly Paynter Dixon’s Development a chance to activate the outdoors.” Kon was inspired by grand courtyards of con- and Design Manager, Paul Coory, couldn’t speak tinental Europe with the large Travatine tiles, the highly enough of the Club Manager Lyndon centrepiece olive tree, hanging baskets and white- Broome and his team: “It was our close workwashed brickwork. And, like a Euro plaza, the Ke- ing relationship with the Club management that helped deliver an outstanding result through an dron-Wavell courtyard is built to last. The curved wall uses specially angled blades to enjoyable and collaborative design and construcallow the weather in, while blocking most of the tion process ensuring the $3.5m refurbishment prevailing wind. Blinds drop down when there’s a was completed smoothly, on time, on budget and importantly ensured the Club operational output storm a-brewing. The Travatine travels inside for continuity’s was maximised. And we’ll stay tuned for the next sake, in fact, you’ll find it on the barfront and cor- phase of redevelopments, which will undoubtridors as well. The timber theme of the outdoor edly keep Kedron-Wavell ahead of the Clubs tables and The Qube also continue indoors help- design curve. News is, Paynter Dixon is currently constructing the next phase of the development. ing to provide a continuity of finishes. The neutral tones are counterpointed by some Can’t wait. playful splashes of colour in the textiles. Oh, and the carpet! The design is from Brinton’s Art Deco range and everyone in the club were super excited CONTACTS by its dash and élan — “It helps to energise the Paynter Dixon (Design & Build): (07) 3368 5500 or www.paynter.com.au whole space,” noted Kon. The ceiling height of Café HQ is quite low and KP Architect (Architecture): (07) 3216 1466 or as a result there aren’t too many big lighting set www.kparchitects.com.au pieces. Rather, indirect lighting on the bar front Brintons Carpets: 1800 332 694 or www.brintons.com.au splashes the floor and something similar in the Café Culture + Insitu: (07) 3254 3700 or cafecultureinsitu.com.au Hughes Commercial Furniture: 1800 242 479 or bulkhead lights up the ceiling. www.hughescf.com.au

ARC HITEC TURE IN T E R IO R DESIGN M AST E RPL ANNING

[0 2 ] 9 364 9000 | www.altisarchitecture.com

ALTIS

BOWLED OVER A touch of the exotic on NSWâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s south coast. Warilla Bowls: Jason Ave, Barrack Heights NSW (02) 4295 9595 or www.warillabowls.com.au

arilla Bowls was a social hub of the Shellharbour region long before this big-budget refurb. But, thanks to a Bergstrom Architects-inspired overhaul, its 20,000-strong membership is finding more reasons to spend its discretionary time relaxing in the Warilla resortstyle atmosphere. The Shellharbour area, 1.5 hours south of Sydney, may be safely out of the big smoke, but it’s no backwater. Families are moving into the area in droves, while cashed up retirees are giving real estate prices a seaside boost. Warilla Bowls is more than a drop-in centre for parma ’n’ pokie aficionados. Apart from the eponymous (indoor/outdoor) bowling greens, Warilla Bowls boasts a ‘full house’ of clubs facilities including a reception centre, cabin accommodation, gymnasium, fitness centre and more. So here is an inherently big-thinking club that wanted to think even bigger, embarking on the first stage of an ambitious masterplan built by James Clifford Construction. The current renovations includes a platinum Plus Tab, new main Lounge and Red Sands Bar & Grill, Cowries Café as well as upgrade to the entry foyer and gaming.

out. It’s an impressive area of a grand scale, complemented by a Yellowgoat lighting feature, Ke-Zu seating and custom Brintons carpets.

RESORT INSPIRATION

BIG BIKKIES

Bergstrom Architects set about reimagining the old, largely interior-looking, layout of the club, opening up the spaces and being more inviting to a broader demographic. The restaurant, bar and gaming areas hadn’t had any love for about 20 years, so there was plenty to do. Bergstrom ran with a tropical resort vibe. It nicely fits Warilla Bowls ‘destination club’ business model. Using an exotic lotus flower as a leifmotif, Bergstrom leaned heavily on rich and organic, natural finishes and tactile textures. The vertical lotus pond in the foyer is a stand

The $6.5m spend seems monstrous for a regional club, but don’t bother looking for hand-carved Italian marble busts of Philip Kipp in the men’s room, or other signs of largesse. “There are a lot of things you don’t see. For example, our mechanical services were in dire need of replacement. So a million dollars was spent on mechanical services alone. We now run our services on a far more efficient chilled water system. We’re now seeing that reflected in our power bills.”

GETTING IT RIGHT Warilla Bowls Manager Philip Kipp is happy, but in a wired kinda way that only comes with spending 6.5 million dollars. “Members love the new decor. Bar sales are up over 15% since the refurb, and food, with the extra capacity and new menu, is up between 80 and 100%. Frustratingly, gaming revenues are slower to recover after closing down for the refurb, but there are signs of a full recovery. “Is everyone happy? The bowling members would happily eat in a tin shed if they were given a $4.50 meal! But we have to keep things in perspective: bowling members account for 500 of the 19,500 members.” Tough love for the bowlers then? “It’s still love! I’m being a little harsh. The bowlers have been really quite complimentary.” And has the refurb drawn a new crowd? “Families are coming in, and it’s very satisfying seeing the kids use the playground and the whole family enjoying the alfresco dining. We’ve achieved quite a shift in that regard.”

CONTACT 1

HC Group Australia: (02) 8188 1018 or www.hcds.com.au

Brintons Carpets: 1800 332 694 or www.brintons.com.au

Hughes Commercial Furniture: 1800 242 479 or www.hughescf.com.au

Ke-Zu: (02) 9699 1788 or info@kezu.com.au Bergstrom Architects: (02) 8920 1499 or www.bergstromarchitects.com.au James Clifford Constructions: www.jamesclifford.com.au

ON TREND Arana Leagues Club: 247 Dawson Parade, Keperra QLD (07) 3354 1333 or www.aranaleagues.com.au

The Arana Leagues Club’s refurbishment includes three new stylish bars, attracting a new demographic and keeping up with member expectations. The renovations, masterminded by architects Brand+Slater, have added the atmosphere and refinement previously lacking, and through some clever reconfiguration of spaces has also improved the flow of the club and created distinct zones. The entire front of house ground floor has been fully updated and all work has been undertaken within the existing footprint of the venue, with the exception of a gaming extension which now offers a comfortable VIP gaming area. The interior fitout turns its back on the traditional ‘club’ look and feel, with a new palette of materials evoking a warm, inviting and harmonious atmosphere. A combination of neutral tones have been selected which let the interesting textures and high quality of materials feature. Immediately upon entering the club, the tone is set for the feeling of a 5-star hotel. Opulent new marble floor tiles and screening leads patrons in towards the Gaming Room and through into the Bistro and Coffee Lounge beyond. Custom feature lights provide a sparkle in the Gaming Room and take advantage of the great ceiling height. Arguably one of the most eye-catching features of this refurbishment is the new custom designed

Brand+Slater Architects: (07) 3252 8899 or www.brandandslater.com.au Jbn (Sound Ceiling): (03) 9379 0899 or www.jbn.com.au

carpet, which is of a design and scale never before seen in Australia. Its huge 14m repeat design unifies zones and draws patrons through the club. A dedicated Coffee Lounge (separate to the Bistro) has been a real drawcard, attracting a new breed of patron previously lacking. The tone set in the Lounge blends seamlessly with the warmth and sophistication of the Bistro, where a strong use of timber and neutral materials reigns. An Alfresco Dining area and Outdoor Lounge now take full advantage of the northerly aspect. This portion of the venue was previously under-utilised and is now an upscale and stylish setting with sleek new furniture and an enticing atmosphere. The Sports Bar maintains an understated masculine feel, with a state-of-the-art TV wall and a Jbn Sound Ceiling providing the ultimate Sports Bar experience, while still maintaining elements of a female friendliness. Bi-fold doors open onto the Bistro Lounge, providing the functionality that the club requires in peak and off peak times. This renovation has breathed new life into the Arana Leagues Club, exemplifying a new design trend and setting a precedent for future projects in the Queensland Clubs Industry.

SON OF A BEACH!

Altis Architecture: (02) 9364 9000 or www.altisarchitecture.com

Cronulla RSL: 38 Gerrale St, Cronulla NSW (02) 9523 6833 or www.cronullarsl.com.au

Korda Carpets (Carpet): (02) 9698 5788 or www.kordadesign.com.au

John Waters, CEO of Cronulla RSL, was presiding over a club that was ticking over unspectacularly. What has always been spectacular, is the view — panoramic vistas of the Pacific Ocean. Saying that, there was an elevated bowling green between the club and those million dollar views… not anymore. When the bowling green had reached its useby date and the desire for generational change had gathered real momentum in the boardroom, the trigger was pulled: it was time to build over the green, and completely re-imagine the club’s F&B offering. John Waters engaged clubs specialists, Altis Architecture and Boden Construction, and set about turbo-charging Cronulla RSL’s future. “The objective of the renovation was to capitalise on the club’s potential and our position. So we closed the bowling green and designed a new area with 65m of glass frontage. “We changed the food delivery to be brasserie style. We were determined to move away from our 220-seat fine dining on the weekend, to seven-day casual dining for 650. We partnered with Con Dedes and his Watergrill concept, which was a good fit for us.” The result? The club’s membership soared from 15,000 to 23,000 in six months and continues to grow at about 1,000 new members a month. From an F&B perspective, bar sales have increased by 300 percent and the restaurant is busy, and on

Boden Projects (Builder): (02) 9667 4488 or www.boden.com.au Globe West (Feature Lighting): (03) 9518 1600 or www.globewest.com.au

Beckton Joinery: (02) 9600 8788 or www.becktonjoinery.com.au

the weekend it’s heaving. All up, the club is doing five times the business, and has taken on 40 new staff. In short, the results have been nothing short of staggering. Altis Director, Rolfe Latimer: “Altis has been at the forefront of many of the success stories in the club industry, however, Cronulla RSL is quite unique in our 22 years as a practice.” The Altis design revolved around a number of key principles: maximise the club’s unique position overlooking the local beach and park; create a balance between designing spaces for traditional members and aspirational spaces to capture the new members in the very competitive hospitality market of Cronulla; and a flexible design to allow the new spaces to open up or close depending on weather conditions in this exposed beach front context. A regular theme for any successful clubs renovation is quality of the teamwork, and this was no different. “We worked hand in hand with Altis and Boden,” noted John Waters. “I was pleased with the way they understood our business and worked with me, rather than just went about things in their own way. There was a constant information flow which helped us to maintain our business while work was being done.” I guess it’s the job of a CEO to keep a lid on things when his club has just blown the roof off the universe. Spectacular.

Noise Complaints?

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ROYAL TREATMENT A landmark local scores a regal refit. Story: James Dampney Royal Hotel Paddington: 237 Glenmore Rd, Paddington NSW (02) 9331 2604 or www.royalhotel.com.au

he tagline of the heritage-listed Royal Hotel in Paddington reads: ‘Good times since 1888.’ While there have undoubtedly been countless enjoyable experiences at the venue over 126 years, the ‘good times’ have just been kicked up a notch following the hotel’s stunning renovation. The Royal is one of the best-known landmarks of Paddington, a historic, largely affluent Sydney suburb situated just 3km from the CBD. It is typified by terrace houses, private art galleries and leafy, tree-line roads, many of which intersect at ‘Five-ways’, a junction of streets some 300m from busy Oxford Street. Over the years, a number of the shops and eateries around Five-ways have come and gone, but an ever-present has been the Royal Hotel. Since new ownership came on board in 1998, however, the Victorian-style venue has survived with only the odd repair job and coat of paint. In the words of the Royal’s Kate Kelly, “it was badly in need of some love and attention”. So Kate and her husband Carl Benjamin, along with designer Ian Halliday of Burley Katon Halliday (BKH), set about giving the site a facelift. And it was an almighty undertaking.

FOUR LEVELS Stretched over four levels, the venue boasts a variety of bars, a restaurant, a bottle shop and perhaps its pièce de résistance, a stunning rooftop deck which overlooks the city and Rushcutters Bay. “It’s an iconic venue that’s been through many hands and it’s going to survive past us,” Kate explains. “We want it to be an iconic landmark that stands on its own two feet and will do so well and truly when we’re no longer here.” The venue has special meaning for Kate and Carl, who actually met at the pub 25 years ago,

well before either had begun working there. Ian Halliday and his team, who have an office in nearby Potts Point, were also very familiar with the venue prior to coming on board: “We were captivated by the history and significance of The Royal as a truly iconic Paddington pub,” Halliday said. “Many of our staff and colleagues have fond memories of The Royal — its almost domesticscaled spaces, its city and harbour views and its abundance of natural light.” They wanted to give the hotel a modern feel, while staying true to the trademarks that have made it such an institution. “We were all really conscious of maintaining the character of the building,” Carl says. “It’s a grand building and we wanted to keep that opulence and sophistication and elegance and pay homage to what people love about the Royal. It’s always been a beautiful old pub and we were very mindful of keeping that vibe and atmosphere in the building.”

PADDINGTON BARED The ground floor has undergone the biggest change in terms of structure, with a number of walls removed to make better use of the space. The TAB, which used to dominate the back half of the room, has been moved to the side, while an enormous screen has been installed to cater for the large number of patrons who visit to view live sporting events. The team at Total Concept Projects were responsible for the audio/visual component. “On weekends, we have the birthdays, the functions, the rugby crowd at one end and the AFL boys up the other end,” Kate said. “With the AV system now, we can accommodate multiple sports. It’s a fully integrated system.” The first floor is a wash of predominantly wood, white and blue tones, with a new kitchen, a retractable roof and an open fireplace.

When we took the walls down, we really didn’t know what we were going to find. That was really scary. All bets were off

BAR & VIEW Traverse another flight of stairs and you come across the famous ‘Elephant Bar’, where black and red colours dominate in a cocktail-style bar complete with decorative mouldings and zinc panelling. Finally there is the remodelled deck, where you need to get in fast to secure one of the coveted tables to watch the sun go down over the city skyline accompanied by your drink of choice. “It’s such an eclectic mix of people here,” Carl reveals. “A carpenter can have a beer with a judge. There aren’t too many places that have that mix.” For the first time, a lift has also been installed to assist patrons move about the giant space.

STAGED CONSTRUCTION Utilising the construction skills and expertise of the Rohrig Group. Rohrig was engaged early in the design planning stages, helping Kate and Carl to understand how decisions would impact on their ability to trade through the rebuild. The planning also helped both parties to build a rapport — the product being a negotiated Guaranteed Maximum Price arrangement, which was operated in an ‘open book’ manner through the life of the project. The transparency of this ar-

right decision in the restoration of a beautiful building. At the end of the day, we’re a pub. We sell cold beer, good times and well-priced food. “We changed the style of food service. For a long time it was waiter service. There are a plethora of fine-dining options for people in this area. We’re a pub.” That’s where Kate jumps in: “We still do the eye fillet with Béarnaise, which is the signature dish,” she notes. “We’ve got our beef and Guinness pie and our Caesar salad. That’s what we’re about. We didn’t change the food quality, we just changed the service style.” And these changes will ensure The Royal continues to maintain its status as one of Sydney’s best known, and most beloved, drinking establishSTEADFAST SOUL ments for years to come. All-too frequently around Sydney, classic pubs “When you think of Paddington and pubs, it’s have been converted into flash, soul-less bars, always been The Royal that stands out,” Carl says. typically losing their identity along the way. UlNow, it stands out just that little bit more. timately it was important for all concerned that The Royal retains its charm as a pub. A unique CONTACTS venue that can cater to virtually all tastes and BKH Architects: (02) 9332 2233 or www.bkh.com.au requirements, the changes have been warmly Rohrig (Construction): (02) 9695 1668 or www.rohrig.com.au received. “A lot of people are saying ‘about time’,” Carl says with a smile. “And absolutely we made the

rangement meant that cost engineering ideas could be acted on, mid project, which assisted the owners’ budgeting for Stage 2, which in-turn was cost planned and delivered seamlessly following the completion of Stage 1. Stage 1 began in January 2013, with the upper levels closed while trading continued on the ground floor. By August the upper levels were complete, trading for six weeks before focus shifted to the ground floor. “It was a leap of faith in a sense,” Kate says. “When we took the walls down, we really didn’t know what we were going to find. That was really scary. All bets were off, but Rohrig were just awesome.” And the results are plain for all to see.

PARK LIFE A leafy well-heeled suburb needs a relaxed, opulent local. Story: Christopher Holder Hotel Centennial: 88 Oxford Street, Woollahra NSW (02) 9362 3838 or www.hotelcentennial.com.au

alcyon Hotels, design group Luchetti Krelle and CWF Constructions have done it again. The dream team that brought you the Woolwich Pier Hotel (see Issue 55) has now done something really quite special in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs. Hotel Centennial could just as easily be in Mayfair as Woollahra, with a sophisticated mix of ‘lounge room’ furniture, contemporary photography and antiques. Too posh for some pub grub and a schooner, then? Not at all. Exec Chef Justin North has pulled together a team headed by Tom Deadman that’ll happily push comfort food and old faves through the servery at affordable prices. Little wonder, then, the Eastern suburbs are treating the Centennial like home away from home. Rachel Luchetti, Luchetti Krelle principal, picks up on the theme: “This part of Sydney can take an upmarket gastro pub. And with that, there’s an expectation of a higher level of design. The existing hotel had a good reputation for its bistro so it was important not to disappoint the regulars.” As it turned out, there was no chance of that with Justin North coming on board. So the flipside was: the concept couldn’t be intimidating. Plush, comfortable, local, good value; a place you could come to once a week or more without worrying too much about the cost. “A neighbourhood pub, in a well-to-do neighbourhood.”

HOME SWEET HOME

The results speak for themselves and have instantly been adopted by locals, according to Group GM Halcyon, Alistair Flower: “The luxurious, cosy and ‘club-like’ feel is very popular with patrons. The Bar and the Lounge have plenty of secluded areas to get away from it all and enjoy a drink with friends. We have our signature Centennial ‘High Sofas’ centrally in the bar — and these are the first spots in the house that get snapped up each day.” And those London Club round dining tables and comfy chairs? Rachel Luchetti explains: “The round tables with the dinner sofas were part of the initial client brief — it was a requirement. It’s not a new concept, Philippe Starck popularised it around 20 years ago, but it’s not something you can buy off the peg very easily. The proportions need to be right, the distance to the table, the height, the comfort… Of course, it’s theoretically possible to eat from any couch, but unless you get it right in a restaurant, people will choose to sit elsewhere.”

‘HI’ TABLE Yes, Hotel Centennial does communal eating… only, with a twist. Say hello to The High Table. The table seats up to 30 and is a highlight of the new-look venue. It’s custom designed with a solid, timber base and stunning marble top. Sit at The High Table and you’ve got the chef’s attention. From Monday through to Wednesday Chef will prepare a daily plate for the entire table for $24 per person. Guests can simply turn up and be surprised but, for those who cannot wait, the dish of the day will be announced on The High Table Tumblr site at 12pm each day. Great idea. Also love the idea of the Wednesday ‘By Request’ night, where the kitchen faces the real challenge of taking guests’ requests — apparently, Centennial is the first in Sydney crazy enough to try this culinary extreme sport. Hotel Centennial will donate $2 from every meal served on The High Table to the local Holdsworth Charity in Woollahra. Also love the Flos Romeo Louis 2 crystal pendants above the table (from Euroluce) and the Millau floor tile from (Ocean & Merchant). Euroluce: (03) 9657 9657 or www.euroluce.com.au Ocean & Merchant: (02) 9310 4088 or www.oceanandmerchant.com

TALKING ABOUT ACOUSTICS Adding another layer of opulence is the restaurant acoustics. It may sound odd to say, but attention paid to minimising unwanted acoustic reflections has given the area a sense of refinement you don’t get when screaming at someone across the table to be heard. Rachel Luchetti again: “Previously the bistro suffered from poor acoustics. We extensively installed EchoPanels from Woven Image — in the ceiling, the barfront and behind slatted timber. “There’s still a buzz about the restaurant but there isn’t that audible distortion you get from sound reflecting off multiple hard surfaces. “Restaurateurs can be reluctant to soften the acoustics, and can find that clamour of conversation, music and crockery reassuring. And, younger hipsters aren’t so concerned about that noise, and happy to yell over it. I’m in my mid thirties and I think I’m already over noisy restaurants, I’d rather somewhere acoustically comfortable where I can conduct a conversation without raising my voice. And certainly there are plenty of Centennial ‘locals’ who are in their 40s, 50s and beyond, so this move to soften the acoustics was a strategic one.” Alistair Flower was particularly happy with the treatment: “The acoustic system certainly makes the dining experience more comfortable; however, the panels are very discreet and perhaps something that guests haven’t entirely noticed.”

KEEPING IT LOCAL

the jackhammers moved in. It was a quick turnaround. The aim was to be closed only six weeks. An interesting spinoff of the super-quick build was a reliance on local suppliers and manufacturers. There wasn’t time to get custom furniture designs knocked up in China, or for light fittings to be put on the slow boat from Europe. It was all about air freight (where it wasn’t cost-prohibitive), local contractors and trades. But the team hung together tightly. Alistair Flower: “Luchetti Krelle are great to work with. Their tirelessness and attention to detail is evident in the quality of everything from the furnishings to the finishes. Meanwhile, CWF Constructions’ work on the Woolwich Pier Hotel was exemplary as it was at the Centennial. There are so many details in both venues that are hand crafted and hand finished, and the builder’s skill is reflected in the finished product.”

Plush, comfortable, local, good value; a place you could come to once a week. A neighbourhood pub, in a well-to-do neighbourhood.

CONTACTS Luchetti Krelle: (02) 9699 3425 or www.luchettikrelle.com Nightlife Music Video: 1800 679 748 or www.nightlife.com.au JSB (Architectural Lighting): www.jsblighting.com.au Temperature Design (Ercol Barstool): www.temperaturedesign.com.au Country Design (Custom Furniture): 1800 211 101 or

Halcyon Group purchased the hotel earlier in the www.countrydesignfurniture.com.au year, and as soon as the keys were handed over, Woven Image: 1800 888 650 or www.wovenimage.com.au

Tiles: Starck Choices

Coquille Tub Chair

Up until now, a joint between tiles was undesirable and mostly minimised. With the Flexible Architecture collection by Philippe Starck, the tile joint now becomes an aesthetic feature — a modular decorative element. Various colours are available in matte and gloss, in five edge profiles, enabling the combined use of different thicknesses and surface textures.

Designed by the leading young Italian design duo Radice & Orlandini, Coquille offers a contemporary twist to the traditional tub chair, making it the perfect partner for casual meeting, relaxed dining or even a comfortable reception. With the option of a tubular base or a wooden frame that can be stained in a range of colours, Coquille comes in a wide choice of upholstery options. Price: from $864.

Academy Tiles: (02) 9436 3566 or www.academytiles.com.au

Chairbiz: 1300 888 434 or www.chairbiz.com

Fermob Flock

Ghillie Chair

Mmm, flocked chairs from Fermob. Cotswold Furniture have access to six of each of the 1900 Side Chair in Fuchsia and the Luxembourg Side Chair in Verbena. Fermob has sprayed the chairs in a fibre spray to create the soft touch for indoor use only. The extra velvety-soft layer adds a genuine touch of warmth and cosiness, screaming Touch Me! The chairs will do the rounds in Cotswold Furniture showrooms and stockists.

David Caon has created this the camo-patterned Ghillie chair for Anomaly. Ghillie is a petite cafe chair in American Ash with a ply seat and back. The chair can have a range of designs applied to its surfaces, made possible through Axolotl’s ability to bond metals such as bronze, and copper directly onto the timber. Customised designs are also possible. Ghillie Camo dining chair: $1880; Ghilli Camo Easy chair: $2050.

Cotswold Furniture: 1800 677 047 or www.cotswoldfurniture.com.au

Anomaly: (02) 9666 1015 or www.anomaly.com.au

Stem Tree Stem Tree is a simple and elegant coat stand that will compliment any interior. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s made from FSCcertified rock maple timber which is carefully crafted to achieve flawless joints.Â The standard finish is natural timber, though custom colours are available on request. Price $995. DesignByThem: (02) 8005 4805 or www.designbythem.com

Curva Dining New to the Enzo Collection is the Curva Dining Chair. These chairs are not only easy on the eye and easy to match but are also stackable. Furthermore, the use of plywood to manufacture each chair ensures sustainability and reusability. Continuing to manufacture products from eco-friendly plywood and rubberwood, each item is not only aesthetically appealing but also contributes to ecological conservation. Price: $265. Exhibit Furniture: (03) 9663 6333 or www.exhibit.net.au

Electro-Voice Joins Club

Jbn Brings Back the Live Music

Wentys Leagues Club is a Sydney superclub with a large, devoted membership, and knows how to have a good time. Which accounts for its big investment in the Star Room. It’s a large showroom that will undoubtedly be a lynchpin venue for bands making the trip up and down the eastern seaboard. The audio is an all Electro-Voice affair. Doing most of the work are two six-strong arrays of EV XLD281 full-range elements, powered by EV’s CPS amps, and controlled by an N8000 Netmax. A pair of 18inch XSubs fill the bottom end, and eight QRX112 wedges populate the stage.

The Live Wire bar located in the heart of the Treasury Casino used to be a favourite destination to enjoy a drink and take in a band any night of the week. However, live bands in the middle of a Casino created problems, music blasting through the main gaming areas disturbing punters and into the Casino’s hotel rooms — noise complaints abounded. Casino management has revived the Live Wire bar, only this time softening the blow by installing a Jbn Sound Ceiling speaker system — containing spill from the venue without sacrificing performance. Live bands are back on weekends at Treasury Casino!

Bosch Communication Systems: (02) 9683 4572 or www.boschcommunications.com.au

Jbn (Sound Ceiling): (03) 9379 0899 or www.jbn.com.au

Crown Spa’s QSC Upgrade

Seamless Panasonic

Digital Living helped Crown Spas save an estimated 15 to 20 percent on its AV upgrade by installing a QSC Q-Sys Core 500i processor at the heart of the system. The upgrade also uses 22 QSC TSC-3 touchscreens and 15 QSC CX254 four-channel amplifiers. The result? Being able to route four in-house audio streams from the main AV control centre to over 40 different zones in the Crown Spas, via a second switch in the luxury Crown Towers hotel.

A big highlight of the Australian Museum’s Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family multimedia experience is a walk-through tunnel that surrounds visitors with footage of dinosaurs wandering through Sydney Harbour. Wizard Projects created the display with rear-projected Panasonic PT-DZ870 projectors using Panasonic short throw lenses. Getting one seamless image from four short-throw projectors was a challenge made easy by Panasonic’s proprietary technique, without recourse to external equipment — saving time and money.

Digital Living: 1300 336 257 or www.digitalliving.com.au

Panasonic: (02) 9491 7400 or www.panasonic.com.au

QUALITY AUDIO SOLUTIONS

Huon Hill’s Easy Control Huon Hill has completed a major development including conference, dining and bar facilities annexed to a new Quest Hotel. The work included a big AV investment, installed by Zeale Group. To help get the deal over the line, Zeale group dummied up two options. The first utilised plates and remote controls (the standard, go-to solution) while the second option included a Crestron touch panel. Huon Hill dug deep and chose the Crestron solution. Everything within the system can be automated via an intuitive Crestron touch panel — blinds, fireplaces, TVs, lights and audio.

RANGE, COST, RELIABILITY.

Hills (Crestron): 1800 685 487 or www.hills.com.au Zeale Group: (02) 6041 1725 or www.zealegroup.com.au

Midas Power Midas has announced the release of the Pro X console that features its new Neutron engine. It packs a whopping 271 ‘channels’ — 168 inputs and 103 outputs. Interestingly, it’s possible for existing Pro 3, 6, and 9 owners to upgrade.

Pre Amplifiers

Amplifiers

Mixer Amplifiers

Surface Mount Speakers

IP Rated Speakers

Music Horns

Paging Horns

Constant Voltage Devices

Ceiling Speakers

National Audio Systems: (03) 8756 2600 or sales@nationalaudio.com.au

For more information on the award winning Apart range contact Sennheiser Australia on Freecall 1800 648 628 visit apart-audio.com.au or sales@sennheiser.com.au

The Ath’s Big Audio Reveal

The Athanaeum really is the ‘little theatre that could’. With an 800 capacity spread across three levels, it’s got that superb ‘close to the action’ atmosphere. Around four years ago it scored a post-GFC government stimulus grant to replace its seating and staging (hoists and pulleys), but that doesn’t detract from the Ath’s exciting old-school charm — unlike the bigger theatres, as soon as you walk in for a show you’re expecting something unexpected; something out of the ordinary. By virtue of its size, the Athanaeum is more ‘off broadway’ than, say, the next host of a two-year run of Disney on Ice. The Ath tracks the creative ebb and flow of Melbourne, following the annual Comedy Festival, the Melbourne Festival, and playing host to everything from theatre productions, to rock concerts and opera. It’s a tough ask for the audio system. It became evident the Athanaeum’s PA, although serviceable, was hardly what you’d call ‘bespoke’ for the venue. What the Ath needed was a rig powerful enough to provide the impact required for a full-blown rock act, while also low profile enough to go unnoticed during a theatre production. It would need to be a solution that would satisfy just about any technical rider, and provide smooth coverage for every seat in the house. At the coalface is Glenn Elston. Not only, as one of the owners, is he putting his hand in his own pocket, he’s also the venue manager, so he’s well aware of the technical demands asked of the theatre. As soon as word got out that the Athanaeum was in the market for an audio upgrade, Glenn was assaulted by a world of choice. After considerable consultation he was won over by a PA from German company, Coda Audio. Hardly a household name in this country, but Coda’s premium range of low-profile,

high-output speakers are first class. The install provides superb tonal continuity across the entire venue and from speaker model to speaker model. Melbourne’s RTR Productions carried out the entire installation of the system, and went the extra mile in concealing much of the wiring. It’s a very clean installation. With the entire PA being upgraded, it was only fitting a new front of house console was added to match. Mixing and monitoring duties are now handled by a Digico SD9 with 2 x D-Racks. Since the installation, the technicians have found the 64 mic inputs on stage more than enough to cover their clients’ needs. There are 24 outputs on stage as well. These can feed the four sends of Nexo PS10R2 monitors, or multiple sets of in-ear monitors. The PA is powered by Camco amplification with Apex and Xilica providing the system management. “My three favourite words: ‘Made in Germany’,” noted a beaming Glenn Elston. “And once we colour match the speakers, they’ll all but disappear into the architecture. “The PA sounds great. The first show we had in was for the UK production of Brief Encounter. The sound techs were very detail oriented. I sent them the specs and they were very impressed. And the thing about happy clients is they go off and tell other would-be clients.” “Our repertoire is moving more and more into music, and we now have a world-class system that’s permanently installed and doesn’t need supplementing in all but the most unusual of circumstances. We’re delighted.” Athanaeum Theatre: www.athenaeumtheatre.com.au Group Technologies (Coda Audio, Digico, Xilica, Apex, Nexo): (03) 9354 9133 or www.grouptechnologies.com.au RTR Productions: (03) 9381 0530 or www.rtrproductions.com.au

we now have a world-class system that’s permanently installed and doesn’t need supplementing

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Emerson Rush

Hush: Quiet Light

More technical info flows through from our Emerson feature of Issue 55. South West Solutions (SWS) were contracted to design and supply a lighting and video package to cater to the dancefloor and to add movement/involvement to the VIP level. SWS secured some of the first Martin Rush available locally, including six MH2 Wash, four MH1 Profile, and four MH3 Beams. In the case of the Emerson, size and weight of the lighting fixture was very important, which made the Martin Rush products well suited.

Hush from David Trubridge is designed as both a light source and an acoustic device. There are currently two sizes: round and a larger oval. Both are large enveloping canopies that contain a constellation of LED lights inside the top. Underneath, sound is muted by the absorbent synthetic felt panels made from 100% polyester fibres (including 65% recycled). The interlocking shapes are very easily assembled with minimal connectors and no tools. They currently come in six different colours.

Show Technology: (02) 9748 122 or www.showtech.com.au

Studio Italia: (03) 9690 4155 or www.studioitalia.com.au

ETC Source Four Mini LED

Belle of the Ball

If you’re looking for an architecturally designed luminaire that can fit in compact places; looks good enough to light paintings in an art gallery; and is energy efficient; then the Source Four Mini LED will do the job for 35,000 hours without a lamp change. The interchangeable lens tubes provide crisp optics in the field angles of 19°, 26°, 36° and 50°. Perfect for would-be energy efficient restaurants, museums and cafes etc.

ULA Group was a proud sponsor of 2014 BMW Bruce Lynton Charity Ball. Working with Digital Lighting Solutions, the team delivered a spectacular production. The full Robe lighting rig consisted of 20 Robin Pointes, 28 Robin 600 LEDWashes, 12 Robin 100 LEDBeams and 2 Robin CycFX 8 fixtures, all controlled through GrandMA lighting console. The Pixel Mappable Chandelier (pictured), controlled by a ChamSys MQ60 console through an ArKaos server, also helped to create a gala atmosphere.

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

ULA Group: 1300 852 476 or www.ulagroup.com

The new Evolution Wireless Series 1800MHz Clear Spectrum Australia-wide

Crown For Cabramatta Satelight was commissioned to produce customised Crown pendant lights for the new Cabramatta Bowling Club’s function area. The 2m-diameter Crown light was produced in-house with a CNC machine, which has opened up the scope of what Satelight offers. The light fitting was designed with 180 individual blades which were simply slotted into position on site. The blades were made from a composite material with a copper exterior face and brushed silver finish on the inside. Satelight: (03) 9399 5805 or www.satelight.com.au

Barooga Takes Shuttle Satelight has manufactured a series of ambient light fittings for Barooga Sports Club’s renovation. Pictured are the Shuttle pendant lights, finished in white. The two sizes, Shuttle 400 and Shuttle 600, were employed to create a dynamic ceiling feature. Satelight: (03) 9399 5805 or www.satelight.com.au

For more information on Sennheiser’s Evolution Wireless Series, 1800 648 628, sales@sennheiser.com.au or visit www.sennheiser.com.au

PREFERRED SUPPLIERS ACCESSORIES

KP Architects

Electric Factory

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Allplastics Engineering Pty Ltd

Luchetti Krelle

Funktion One

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Bar Icon Group

Marchese

Group Technologies

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www.gtaust.com

JamFactory www.jamfactory.com.au

Make

Hills SVL

Kennards

JVG Sound Leaders in AV, Lighting, Hire, Production, Security and MATV NSW, QLD, NT, VIC, TAS 1300 584 584 (07) 5599 1222 admin@jvgsound.com.au www.jvgsound.com.au

www.make.net.au

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Mezzanine Wine

Nicholas Associates

JB commercial

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www.nicholasassociates.com.au

www.jbcommercial.com.au

PILA Group

Peckvonhartel

Len Wallis Audio

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www.lenwallisaudio.com

Raypak

Pikewithers

Magna Systems

Technogym

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www.magnasys.com.au

www.technogym.com

SixDegrees Architecture

Max Home

AMX Australia

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SJB

McCalls

AVICO

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Dyson

Squillace Architects+Interior Design

Meyer sound

Avocent Australia

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Jet Dryer

Stanton Creative Group

Music Link

Axiom

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www.musiclink.com.au

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Tradelink

Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects

National Audio Systems

Beyond AV

www.tradelink.com.au

www.tzg.co.au

www.nationalaudio.com.au

www.beyondav.com.au

RBA Group

McGlashan Everist

Night Works Audio

BE Productions

www.rba.com.au

www.mearchitects.com

www.nightworksaudio.com.au

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Webb Australia

One Productions

Bose Australia

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www.oneproductions.com.au

www.bose.com.au

Woodhead

Pioneer

BOSCH

www.woodhead.com.au

www.pioneer.com.au

www.boschsecurity.com.au

Production Audio Services

Canohm

www.productionaudio.com.au

www.canohm.com.au

Syntec International

Castel Electronics

www.syntec.com.au

www.castel.com.au

TAG

Clipsal

www.tag.com.au

www.clipsal.com.au

Yamaha

Clearlight Shows www.clearlight.com.au

www.yamahamusic.com.au

DJW project

www.kennards.com.au

www.raypak.com.au

AMMENITIES

ARCHITECTS

AUDIO EQUIPMENT

2RKS Architecture + Design 2 Winslow Street Milsons Point, NSW 2061 T: (02) 8904 0000 F: (02) 8904 0411 www.2rks.com

BERGSTROM ARCHITECTS Suite 103, 3 Eden Street, North Sydney NSW 2060 T: (02) 8920 1499 F: (02) 8920 1599 info@bergstromarchitects.com.au Altis Architecture www.altisarchitecture.com Arkhefield www.arkhefield.com.au

J Audio Supply and Design Professional Audio Systems (07) 5599 1551 info@jdistribution.net www.jdistribution.net

www.djwprojects.com.au Dynalite

AUDIOVISUAL & INSTALLATION

EPSON www.epson.com.au Herma www.herma.com.au iMatteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sBody of Work www.techtel.com.au

Jands Pty Ltd JBL - SHURE - Soundcraft 40 Kent Road, Mascot NSW 2020 (02) 9582 0909 www.jands.com.au

Australian Venue Services Pty Ltd 5 Saywell Street, Marrickville, NSW 2204 1300 66 31 66 info@a-v.com.au www.australianvenueservices. com.au

Baenzigercoles

Acoustica

www.baenzigercoles.com.au

Advance Audio Australia

Brand+Slater

www.advanceaudio.com.au

www.brandandslater.com.au

Audio Logistics

BY Architects

www.audiologistics.com.au

www.byarchitects.com.au

Audio Product Group

Cox Richardson www.cox.com.au

www.audioproducts.com.au

Goodwin Design

Bishop Audio

www.goodwindesign.com.au

www.bishopaudio.com.au

Group GSA

Bose

www.groupgsa.com

www.bose.com

Jackson Clement Burrows

CMI Music & Audio

Impact AV www.impactav.com.au JBN www.jbn.com.au Laser Vision www.laservision.com.au Milestone Solutions www.milestone.com.au

Axil Architecture www.axil.com.au

www.jcba.com.au

www.dynalite-online.com

Pulse AV

www.acoustica.com.au

www.cmi.com.au

www.pulseav.com.au Venutech

AV System Consultancy & Design Theatre Planning & System Design Architectural Lighting Design NSW: (02) 9029 0281 sydney@designstage.com.au QLD: (07) 3367 2234 brisbane@designstage.com.au www.designstage.com.au

www.venutech.com.au Video Pro www.videopro.com.au YSI www.soundinvestment.com.au

CONSTRUCTION

DESIGN

Global Shop Fitters Complete commericial fit-outs design and consultancy Unit 9/17 Rothcote Crt Burleigh Heads QLD 4220 Ph: 1300 103 755 www.globalshopfitters.com

Paul Kelly Design 77 Bay St. Glebe. NSW 2007 (02) 9660 8299 www.paulkellydesign.com.au

DISPLAY

Samsung Electronics Australia Commercial Displays 8 Parkview Drive Homebush Bay NSW 2127 02 9763 9700 it.sales@samsung.com www.samsung.com/au/business

Playcom Customised Entertainment Digital Signage systems background music and music video Street 22, 89 Jones St, Ultimo (02) 8815 6600 info@playcom.com.au www.playcom.com.au Platinum TV www.platinumtv.com.au

The Chillie Group Hostpitality Industry Specialists Hotels – Pubs – Clubs – Gaming – Bars Restaurants – Design Construction (02) 9453 4744 info@thechilliegroup.com.au www.thechilliegroup.com.au

TM DESIGN GROUP PTY LTD DESIGNERS TO THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY Studio 5, 11 Beach Street Port Melbourne, VIC 3207 Ian Macklin (Director) 03 9646 9932 0417 147 110 imacklin@tmdg.com.au www.tmdg.com.au

Arcon

V Screen Indoor/Outdoor LED Screens (07) 5599 1551 info@jdistribution.net www.jdistribution.net

FABRIC Dickson-Constant www.dickson-constant.com Kvadrat Maharam www.kvadratmaharam.com Warwick Fabrics

Aquavision

www.warwick.com.au

www.aquavisiontv.com.au Hitachi

FINISHES

www.hitachi.com.au Innovizion

Alloy Design

www.innovizion.com.au

www.alloydesign.com.au

www.arcon-nsw.com.au

Barbara and fellows

JVC proffesional

Armstrong

Crown Commercials

www.barbaraandfellows.com.au

www.jvc-australia.com

www.armstrong-aust.com.au

www.creationbaumann.com

Bleux

Mitsubishi Electric

Axolotl Group

Gibbon Group

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www.mitsubishielectric.com.au

www.axolotl-group.com

www.gibbongroup.com.au

Dasch Associates

NEC

Bravo print

Rohrig

www.daschassociates.com

www.nec.com.au

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www.rohrig.com.au

D4 Residential & Commercial Design

Panasonic

Caesarstone

Isis

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www.panasonic.com.au

www.caesarstone.com.au

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DBI Design

Philips

Casf

James Clifford Construction

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www.casf.com.au

www.jamesclifford.com.au

Dreamtime

Samsung

Design Room Australia

Liquid Lines

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www.samsung.com.au

Digiglass

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Edge Commercial Interiors

Sony

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Paynter Dixon

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www.sony.com.au

Dulux

www.paynterdixon.com.au

Innersphere

Wilson Gilkes

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Premier Club Constructions

www.innersphere.com.au

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Hot Metal

www.premierbuild.com.au

Inset Group

Viewsonic Australia

www.hotmetal.biz

Premier Building Group

www.insetgroup.com.au

www.viewsonic.com

Hunter Douglas Architectural Products

www.premierclub.com.au

Joshua Bacon Design

Quality Project Management

www.joshuabacon.com.au

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Lime Design Interiors

www.instyle.com.au

Reed Constructions Australia

www.limedesigninteriors.com.au

Interior Art Image

www.reedgroup.com.au

Merrill Design Australia

www.interiorartimage.com

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Interior Decorative Coatings

Moth Design

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www.mothdesign.com.au

Laminex

COMMERCIAL EDUCATION

www.hunterdouglascommercial.com.au

ENTERTAINMENT

www.laminex.com.au

Nexus Design www.nexusdesigns.com.au

UNE Partnerships Facilities Management Frontline Management Project Management 122-132 Mossman Street Armidale NSW 2350 (02) 6773 0000 www.unep.edu.au accounts@unep.edu.au

Origin Didier Design www.origindidier.com.au Platinum Interiors www.platinuminteriors.com.au Quattro Design www.quattrodesign.com.au Ryder Hampton www.ryderhampton.com

Instyle Contract Textiles

Nightlife Music Managed Music, Visuals and Digital advertising solutions For more information call: Phil Brown - National Sales 0404 556 727 phil.brown@nightlife.com.au www.nightlife.com.au

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PREFERRED SUPPLIERS FLOORING

Designer Rugs

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www.designerrugs.com.au

Evostyle

DTAC

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www.dtac.com.au

Finest international, local and custom-made tiles for the commercial, hospitality & corporate market. 182-186 Parramatta Road, Camperdown NSW 2050 (02) 9550 5204 www.belmondotiles.com.au

Eco Flooring Systems

Eurofurn

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www.eurofurn.com.au

Eco Tile Factory www.ecotilefactory.com.au Forbo www.forbo-flooring.com.au Godfrey Hirst www.godgfreyhirst.com Gunnersen Inspirations www.gunnersens.com.au InterfaceFLOR

Cavalier Bremworth Pure NZ wool carpet More than 30 carpet styles 1800 251 172 mrobinson@cavbrem.com.au www.cavbrem.com.au

National Tiles www.nationaltiles.com.au Polyflor Australia www.polyflor.com.au

www.hospitalityfurniture.net.au

Prototype Commercial Furniture Manufacture, Tailor and Supply Commercial Furniture 31 Paringa Road Murarrie QLD 4217 1 The Crescent, Kingsgrove NSW 2208 1300 799 376 info@prototype.net.au www.prototype.net.au

Insitu Furniture www.insitufurniture.com.au James Richardson www.jamesrichardson.com.au

JMH Hospitality Furniture www.hospitalityfurniture.com.au

The Rug Collection www.therugcollection.com.au

Matt Blatt

The Seatery Custom Upholstery Specialist Factory 3, 24 Longstaff Road Bayswater Vic 3153 (03) 9720 0042 enquiries@theseatery.com.au www.theseatery.com.au

FURNITURE

FURNITURE B Seated Australia Leading Supplier & Manufacturer of Commercial Furniture. 7/22 Mavis St , Revesby, NSW 2212 1300 727 637 www.bseatedglobal.com.au

www.mattblatt.com.au Nufurn www.nufurn.com.au PGR Furniture www.pgrfurniture.com.au Pomp Furniture www.pomp.com.au Robert Plumb

Aero Design

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www.aerodesigns.com.au

Ross Didier www.origindidier.com.au

Blok Furniture

Schiavello www.schiavello.com

www.blokfurniture.com.au

Sebel www.sebelfurniture.com

BINDI Furn

Space www.spacefurniture.com.au

www.bindifurniture.com.au

Stylecraft www.stylecraft.com.au

Botton & Gardiner

Tait www.tait.biz

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Zenith Interiors

Cafe Culture

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www.ambertiles.com.au

Cubus

Ardex

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Chairbiz

HEATING

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Boral Timbers

www.interstudio.com.au

www.theandrewsgroup.com.au

Capital Design Works

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Interstudio

www.jardan.com.au

Amber Tiles

DĂŠcor Stone

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The Andrews Group

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Iken

Jardan Australia

www.whitecliffe.com.au

Dalsouople Australasia

www.hughescf.com.au

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Whitecliffe Imports

www.classicfloorcoverings.com.au

Hughes Commercial Furniture

Tascot Carpets

www.casinoconsoles.com.au

Classic Floorcoverings

Globe West

Hospitality Furniture Concepts

www.livingtiles.com.au

Casino Consoles Australia

www.brintons.net/commercial

www.gadgetking.com.au

www.greatdanefurniture.com

Tsar Carpets and Rugs www.tsar.com.au

Brintons Pty Limited

Gadget King

Living Tiles

www.stoneartaust.com.au

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www.furnitureoptions.com.au

Great Dane Furniture

StoneArt

Altro Flooring

Furniture Options

www.karndean.com

www.rockson.com.au

www.academytiles.com.au

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www.globewest.com.au

Rocks On

Academy Tiles

Four Two

Karndean International

www.rmsmarble.com

Tappeti Level 2, 13 - 15 Levey Street Chippendale 2008 T: (02) 9698 2735 F: (02) 9698 2788 designstudio@tappeti.com.au www.tappeti.com.au

www.form-function.com.au

www.interfaceaus.com.au

Rms Natural Stone

Gibbon Group Innovative, sustainable and high-quality interior finishes (07) 3881 1777 sales@gibbongroup.com.au www.gibbongroup.com.au

Form and Function

Instyle Seating High Quality, Functional, Affordable Furniture for Hospitality, Commercial and Corporate. Australia Wide Delivery. 1300 309 889 info@instyleseating.com.au www.instyleseating.com.au

Contempo Furniture Pty Ltd Design and Manufacturing of Commercial Furniture and Lighting, specialising in unique metal finishes; Metal Spinners and Sheet Metal Fabricators (02) 9726 6794 www.contempofurniture.com.au

Comax www.comaxaustralia.com.au Corporate Culture www.corporateculture.com.au Corporate Express www.ce.com.au CF Design www.cfdesign.com.au Echelon

Bromic Heating Head Office: 1 Suttor Street, Silverwater, Sydney NSW 2128 1300 276 642 F: (02) 9748 4289 www.bromic.com.au

INTERIORS

Haron Robson www.haronrobson.com.au Illumanon www.illumanon.com Innermost www.innermost.com.au

Climate Australia Specialists in Outdoor Temperature Solutions Unit 6, Enterprise Industrial Estate 8 Tilley Lane Frenchs Forest NSW 2086 (02) 9977 3474 0414 48 5555 www.climateaustralia.com.au

Illumination Physics www.illuminationphysics.com LSC

Di Emme Creative Solutions Chiaro Screens - MetaFinish MetaFlex - Stonini Unit 3, 87-89 Moore Street Leichhardt NSW 2040 (02) 9550 0811 www.diemme.com.au

www.lsclighting.com LSW www.lsw.com.au Mance Design www.mance.com.au Mayfield Lamps www.mayfieldlamps.com.au Mega Vision www.megavision.com.au Optique www.optique.com.au Optic Fibre Lighting www.opticfiberlighting.com.au

Thermofilm Australia Pty Ltd 27 Rosalie Street, Springvale VIC 3171 T: (03) 9562 3455 F: (03) 9548 3979 sales@thermofilm.com.au www.thermofilm.com.au

Crown Doors International www.

Osram www.osram.com.au

crowndoors.com.au

Passive Lighting

Ke-Zu www.kezu.com.au

www.passivelighting.com.au

Silent GlIss www.silentgliss.com.au

PointOfView www.pov.com.au

Smartstone www.smartstone.com.au

Pulse Show Lighting

Somfy www.somfy.com.au

www.pulse-ent.com.au

Tint Design www.tintdesign.com.au

Satelight www.satelight.com.au

Woven Image www.wovenimage.com.au

Show Technology:

Woven Wall www.wovinwall.com

www.showtech.com.au

Viridian Glass www.viridianglass.com

Studio Italia www.studioitalia.com.au Tenrod www.tenrod.com.au

Alfresco Spaces

LIGHTING

Yellow Goat www.yellowgoat.com.au

www.alfrescospaces.com.au

Xenian www.xenian.com.au

Celmec International

WhiteLite www.whitelite.com.a

www.celmec.com.au

ULA www.ula.com.au

Devex Systems www.devexsystems.com.au EcoSmart Fire www.ecosmartfire.com Everdure www.everdure.com

Jands Pty Ltd Vari*lite - ETC 40 Kent Road, Mascot NSW 2020 (02) 9582 0909

Gasmate www.gasmate.com.au

OUTDOOR LouvreSpan www.louvrespan.com.au Skyspan Umbrellas

Jetmaster www.jetmaster.com.au

www.skyspan-umbrellas.com

www.jands.com.au

Keverton www.kevertonoutdoor.com.au Pure Heat www.pureheat.com.au

Supershades www.supershades.com.au Vergola

J Lighting Architectural/LED/ Stage Lighting (07) 5599 1551 info@jdistribution.net

Realflame www.realflame.com.au Solamagic Australia www.solamagic-australia.com.au

FABRICATION

www.vergolansw.com.au

POINT OF SALE Fedeltapos www.fedeltapos.com Impos www.impos.com.au Micros Systems www.micros.com Omnipos www.omnipos.com.au

www.jdistribution.net

OX Engineering Group Pty Ltd Specialists in architectural metalwork,displays,metal fabrication and Signage 23 Britton St Smithfield NSW 2164 (02) 9616 7444 www.overexposure.com.au

NPA Specialised Lighting Components Wholesale supplier of lighting components, specialising in custom neon, cold cathode systems, LED general lighting and architectural LED systems. (07) 5597 2554 sales@npalighting.com www.npalighting.com

Redcat www.redcat.com.au

SECURITY EOS www.eos.com.au Nightkey www.metropolisfremantle.com.au OPOC www.opoc.com.au

SIGNAGE Albert Smith Group www.asggroup.com.au

Balanced Technology

Face Visual Marketing Group

www.balancedtech.com.au

www.facevmg.com.au

Display Design

Fen Systems Australia

www.displaydesign.com.au

www.fensystems.com.au

ECC

Fremont Design

www.ecclightingandliving.com

www.fremontdesign.com.au

Element Labs www.elementlabs.com

Sachr Sign Strategy

Euroluce www.euroluce.com.au

www.sachr.com.au

01NE Abu Dhabi

There’s something intoxicating about the notion of a true super club, and we’re not just talking about the waft of the top-shelf cognac. O1NE in Abu Dhabi has gone with a tech-led strategy to impress. Located on ‘Yas Island’ the O1NE super-club is designed by architect Sari el Khazen, the man responsible for the acclaimed architecture of Beirut’s ‘Skybar’. Everything about the venue is intended to be enjoyed in full surround — providing a fully immersive sensory invasion. And much of that comes from the audiovisual infrastructure. Apparently it was while watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics ceremonies that owner Chafic el Khazen was inspired to add 360° projection. Then with the advent of 3D mapping he decided to take things one step further (3D projection is about creating 3D-looking images on a 2D screen). Achieving a 3D mapped image on a curved, organic-shaped screens raises the difficulty stakes even higher, but the results are truly stunning. Studio Mr.White (headed by Hani Abyad) and Minus5 Architects (with Daniel Georges as principal) is the tag team responsible for the creative solutions to mapping and visual experience projects. With a whopping 1200sqm projectable area (120 linear metres of screens), the team set about creating highly de-

tailed visuals with seamless stitching and flawless looping. The files are enormous (11,213 pixels in width and 1152 pixels in height), but it was critical to maintain full resolution given the size of the ‘canvas’. The club was extensively 3D mapped, and the interiors had banners to provide visual continuity between walls, allowing viewers’ eyes to move effortlessly from one huge wall to the other. You’re more likely to see 3D projection mapping on the side of a large public building than in a nightclub. In fact, the close proximity of the walls to the audience forced the team to pay extra attention to every detail, from general perspective rules, to creating custom depth of field visuals that would allow people on every level to enjoy believable scenes. Stacked projection, using high-end Christie and Panasonic hardware is synched with the lighting setup to avoid light spill onto the screen, preserving a high contrast ratio, crisp colours and dark blacks. The lighting is similarly top-notch. Primarily it’s a Clay Paky affair and designed by Hiljo Stadt of The Lighting Dutchmen. Alpha Spot QWO 800s are carrying the bulk of the lighting load which Stadt chose because he “wanted a fast and accurate moving light head with versatile beam options.” 01NE: www.o1neyasisland.com

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