Design to feast on
At the recent Artichoke Night School in Sydney, four designers discussed how to make powerful hospitality venues for the increasingly discerning diner.
Artichoke Night School is a great opportunity for professionals and the public to come together and discuss issues at the forefront of Australian design. The latest edition, held in Space Furniture’s Sydney showroom, focused on a topic close to the hearts, minds and stomachs of all Australians – hospitality design. The invited speakers were Angela Biddle of Scott Carver, Vince Alafaci and Caroline Choker of Acme & Co and Iva Foschia of IF Architecture, with Artichoke’s editor Cassie Hansen chairing the event.
Biddle’s presentation looked at the nexus of strategy and design in hotel restaurants and the challenges that face operators and designers in tackling what is perhaps the most complex of hospitality typologies. Biddle’s first phrase summed up the core of the issue – “Hotel restaurants don’t have it easy … how do you design an offering and a space that remains active throughout the day?” Putting the magnitude of the Australian hospitality industry in context, Biddle reminded the audience that over $45 billion dollars per year is spent on hospitality in Australia, with most people eating out two to three times a week. Why then, Biddle asked, have Australian hotel restaurants not been able to capitalize on this market as successfully as their international counterparts? To help break down the experience offering, Biddle outlined the difference between the three principal tiers – luxury, lifestyle and everyday hotel restaurant – and the key attributes of the design needed to attract repeat visits and keep the spaces activated. Her advice for designers trying to advance this typology in Australia was that they “shouldn’t just aim to tick boxes, but push the boundaries of their clients.”
Given the huge “food boom” occurring worldwide and an insatiable desire for new food and beverage venues, Vince Alafaci and Caroline Choker of Acme & Co positioned their talk in terms of how designers need to create “unique and immersive experiences.” This was made even more pertinent given the competitive threat from disruptive services such as Uber Eats that bypass spatial design altogether. Alafaci and Choker presented two of their Sydney projects – the Grounds of the City in the Sydney CBD and Archie Rose distillery and bar in Alexandria. Of key importance to Acme & Co was good zoning that created a variety of experience environments within the space. This means that upon each return visit the customer has an opportunity to experience something new. Choker highlighted the importance of detailing within the interior, stating that “detail creates customer curiosity,” which then creates “touch points” for the patrons. This was seen to reinforce the experience and the brand. Alafaci and Choker see branding strategy and design as inseparable, with an alignment of the two as increasingly fundamental to success.
The final speaker of the evening, Iva Foschia of IF Architecture, presented two evocative Melbourne restaurants she designed, Attica and Cutler & Co. Both of these projects have a strong connection between their culinary offering and the design, where “food and space are completely intertwined.” Both projects show incredible depth of conceptual structure, luscious materiality and detailing. However, Foschia cautions that with these projects “the space is not the hero, it is there to support the brand experience.” Despite the richness of the design experience, Foschia reinforces the importance of good design pragmatics, effective zoning and attention to acoustic attenuation – the latter being in desperate need of improvement across Australian restaurants.
The speakers painted a bright picture for the outlook of Australian hospitality design, though it was recommended that designers need to broaden their offering to include branding and strategy to their clients to increase the “value add” of the service they currently provide.
Encouragingly it seems that global eyes are now turning to Australian designers and their work as benchmarks of cutting-edge hospitality design, and that is something to be proud of. a
The Artichoke Night School series is presented by Artichoke magazine in partnership with Space Furniture. This Night School session was held at Space’s Sydney showroom. Want to know about future Artichoke Night School events? Sign up at designspeaks.com.au