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expanse of the restaurant. As a counterpoint to the rawness
of the steel, glass and concrete, timber was employed to
give both warmth and tactility.
What was your ambition for the interior? The ambition
for the restaurant was for it to operate on different levels,
from the urban to the intimate; as a passage from and
beacon to the bustling city and museum atrium adjacent,
to a setting where the senses remain piqued, yet can rest
within and on serene surfaces and textures. This is to
prepare the patron for a focused culinary experience.
Could you describe the bar concept? Although a
comprehensive beverage programme was an important
element to the restaurant’s operation, the team shifted
away from an identifiable bar. A visually open bar would
have been a distraction from the ethos of the space. We
therefore rendered the bar element as a steel and felt solid
volume, with its operation facing the kitchen suites. Pass-
throughs were carved out for drinks to be picked up
and delivered to patrons lounging adjacent. Floating
shelves within these pass-throughs allow for the
presentation of organised glassware, indicating
the activity behind the felt panels.
Were you striving to create a timeless interior? We took
great care to address the need for a timeless experience,
yet understood the relative brevity of an architectural
intervention in a restaurant’s lifespan. The concept of
beginning with a raw base shell, then adding elements, could
be more easily managed in future shifts of the restaurant’s
sensory and culinary missions. Integral to this approach was
the use of non-precious materials innate to the embedded
sensory catalogues shared by people from around the world:
wood, concrete and steel. These materials were elevated in
character from rough to refined throughout the space.What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
The initial challenge was the conceptual discussion of how
the space could be flexible enough to accommodate the
variety of dishes that would be presented. An additional
operational challenge was making the restaurant
accessible from both the street front entrance and the
museum atrium, each with potentially disparate hours.
The solution was operable dark wood pocketing panels
that would cover the entrance and glazed window
openings to the museum atrium when needed. This
created a visually and acoustically absorbent felt and
wood panel rhythm when closed down. Do you think bar and restaurant design is different in the
USA compared to Europe? As the classic bar and
restaurant layout typologies have continued to be strongly
represented in both the USA and Europe, we have seen
an intriguing shift to decentralised programmes within
restaurants. Instead of anchoring a space with a bar
element, service credenzas, beverage programme elements
and kitchen elements are interspersed throughout the
entirety of the restaurants. This affords a more immersive
experience for the patron in the workings of the restaurant
and shies away from the traditional binary front-of-house
versus back-of-house separation.Below Rouse says the brief
was to create ‘a simple,
comfortable environment’