2014 Eat Drink Design Awards

Over 300 architects, designers and their hospitality clients celebrated the announcement of the 2014 Eat Drink Design Awards on 18th November at Melbourne’s Ormond Hall. The Awards recognise projects in six categories; Best Bar Design, Best Restaurant Design, Best Café Design, Best Temporary Design, Best Retail Design and Best Identity Design. More than 150 projects were entered and from these, 68 were shortlisted, 21 received high commendations and 6 won awards. Team Yellowtrace is incredibly excited to announce that one of our Studio projects has received a high commendation this year – we feel proud to find ourselves in such fine company alongside many Australian design practices we respect and admire.

The jury for the 2014 Eat-Drink-Design Awards comprised Simon Denton, restaurateur Izakaya Den, Hihou and Nama Nama; Michael Harden, food critic and writer The Age, Gourmet Traveller and Good Food; Tina Engelen, designer and principal CO-AP Architects; Kirsti Simpson, designer and director, Hassell; and Cameron Bruhn, editorial director, Architecture Media. As founding ambassadors for the Awards, chef Christine Manfield and food writer Jill Dupleix continued to champion the symbiotic relationship between hospitality and design.

There are some discernible trends in most of the award categories – for example, the love affair Australian cafes have with Scandinavian design shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. Fire damage was incorporated as a beautiful textural addition, exposed beams and bluestone melded seamlessly with more modern materials, and visual identities directly linked to the history of the buildings in which they were housed. Another trend that has continued from previous years is a return to traditional forms, in a way that’s both romantic and pragmatic. This year you can see bars that feel thoroughly modern and unique, while still referencing the traditional bars of Europe and pubs of Australia, restaurants that embrace the tropes of grand fine dining but in an elegant, pared-back way, and brilliantly inventive pop-up and mobile businesses that have given solidity and form to the temporary. Australian hospitality design is in fine shape. It’s good to be able to celebrate its success.

BEST RESTAURANT DESIGN WINNER

Best Restaurant Design Winner / Rockpool by Grant Cheyne (NSW). Photography by Earl Carter.

“There’s an almost monastic restraint to the design of Rockpool, Neil Perry’s flagship restaurant, which relocated from Sydney’s Rocks to the heritage-listed Burns Philp Building in the CBD in late 2013. The beautifully crafted shell with its balcony-like mezzanine, ornate columns and ironwork, impressive arched, timber-framed windows that overlook Bridge Street and soaring ceiling heights has a wealth of natural and historic advantages.

But rather than trying to embellish on these, the design instead chooses elegance and restraint, a kind of visual silence that is something of a rarity in an era plentiful with imagery and ideas. The black-on-black colour scheme is most dramatic at night when light is focused on the tables and parts of the room seem to disappear altogether, except for a glimmer of glazed tile or the shadowy texture of wall and column surfaces. Yet while the design embraces subtle gestures, it still exudes a powerful sense of luxe occasion, something enhanced by the occasional dramatic flourish like the 3.5-metre custom-designed pendants suspended over the main dining space. Add Perry’s renowned food and Rockpool delivers one of Australia’s great dining experiences.”

BEST RESTAURANT DESIGN, HIGH COMMENDATIONS

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / Cho Cho San by George Livissianis. Photography by Tom Ferguson.

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / Prix Fixe Melbourne by Fiona Lynch. Photo by Sharyn Cairns.

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / Ester Restaurant & Bar by Anthony Gill Architects. Photo by Peter Bennetts.

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / Yellow by Pascale Gomes McNabb. Photography by Paul Macmahon.

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / The Press Club by March Studio. Photography by Peter Bennetts.

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / A.Baker by DesignOffice. Photo by Scottie Cameron.

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / Bentley Restaurant and Bar by Pascale Gomes McNabb. Photography by Paul Macmahon.

Best Restaurant Design, High Commendations / Ruyi Dumpling & Wine Bar by Hecker Guthrie. Photo by Shannon McGrath.

BEST BAR DESIGN WINNER

Best Bar Design Winner / Clever Little Tailor by Xtra Shiny (SA). Photography by David Sievers.

“Everything about Clever Little Tailor, an Adelaide laneway bar in a repurposed early-twentieth-century loading dock, is carefully considered and admirably consistent. From the handpainted gold lettering on the front door through to the meticulously crafted leather booths, painstakingly exposed bluestone and brickwork and the marble, parquetry and polished aluminium detailing, there is a seamless branding which gives the bar a strong sense of authenticity, as if it has been in the business of shaking cocktails for decades rather than months.

It’s a warm, inviting design, interestingly textured from the almost exclusive use of non-synthetic materials and the clever, flattering lighting that works equally well day and night. Better still, the design is timeless and doesn’t read as age or demographic specific. Like the great bars of Europe, the split-level space can accommodate people of all ages in a mixture of partitioned and open seating zones with ease and elegance. It’s a design that invites you in and makes you want to stay – surely the perfect combination for any hospitality space.”

BEST BAR DESIGN, HIGH COMMENDATIONS

Best Bar Design, High Commendations / A.Baker by DesignOffice. Photography by Scottie Cameron.

Best Bar Design, High Commendations / Hophaus Bier Bar, Southbank Vic by Maddison Architects. Photography by William Watt.

Best Bar Design, High Commendations / Zhou Zhou by Hecker Guthrie. Photography by Shannon McGrath.

BEST CAFE DESIGN WINNER

Best Cafe Design Winner / A.Baker by DesignOffice (ACT). Photography by Scottie Cameron.

“Part of a series of well-integrated, beautifully realised “culinary destinations” occupying the ground floor and basement of Canberra’s heritage-listed New Acton Pavilion, the cafe at A. Baker is a refreshingly brutal space with the building’s dramatic recent history etched into the walls. The 1920s building was ravaged by fire in 2011 and the design incorporates the charred walls as part of a palette that also includes concrete, bluestone, galvanised steel and leather as part of an elegantly elemental mix.

The cafe shares the ground floor space with the restaurant, the two areas separated – and connected – by a central open kitchen. There’s a wonderfully organic feel to the layout, with a sense of space and flow that invites you to explore the spaces, both those on the cafe level and the basement level bakery and bar, connected by a newly installed stair. The solidity of concrete – including cast concrete seats with leather upholstery – mixes with an abundance of natural light during the day, making what could have been a stark and slightly forbidding space warm, sculptural and subtly inviting.”

BEST CAFE DESIGN, HIGH COMMENDATIONS

Best Cafe Design, High Commendations / The Incinerator, Sydney by ACME & Co.

Best Cafe Design, High Commendations / Patch Cafe by Studio You Me. Photography by Tom Blachford.

Best Cafe Design, High Commendations / Market Lane Coffee, Queen Victoria Market by Hearth Studio. Photography by Armelle Habib.

BEST RETAIL DESIGN WINNER

Best Retail Design Winner / The Standard Market Company Newstead by Richards & Spence (QLD). Photography by Toby Scott.

“With its uplit vaulted ceiling, terracotta floor tiles, white glazed wall tiles and abundant displays of fruit and vegetables piled high on tables modelled on old wooden trestle tables and fruit crates, The Standard Market Company consciously nods at the traditional. But there’s a modern sensibility at work too at this third outpost of the Queensland food market that incorporates a butcher, a baker, a deli and a green grocer.

Glazed cool rooms are stacked full of cheese and hanging meats, while butchers and pastry chefs work behind glass, all tapping into current obsessions with the theatre of fresh food production and the desire for immediacy between food production and sale. This blend of traditional and modern creates a thoroughly attractive tension in the space so that the store feels both large and intimate, sophisticated and modest. The design is also refreshingly straightforward, clearly focused on the product but in clever, theatrical, entertaining ways – the arched ceiling, the integrated lighting, the sausage-making butchers – that make it an ideal template for how attractive and efficient food retailing can be.”

BEST RETAIL DESIGN, HIGH COMMENDATIONS

Best Retail Design, High Commendations / Zumbo Cafe Melbourne by Elenberg Fraser. Photography by Peter Clarke.

Best Retail Design, High Commendations / Koko Black Salon Chadstone by Bureau8 in Collaboration with Cibi. Photo by Dianna Snape.

Best Retail Design, High Commendations / The Apple Shed by Cumulus Studio. Photo by Jonathan Wherrett.

BEST TEMPORARY DESIGN WINNER

Best Temporary Design Winner / Coffee PEDDLR by Ruined City (VIC). Photography by Breeana Dunbar.

“This cheerful ray of sunshine coffee van perfectly encapsulates what the Best Temporary Design category is all about – the innovative ways in which hospitality can be delivered. The quirky retro good looks and eye-catching colour give Coffee PEDDLR’s retrofitted Citroen H van an almost instantly iconic impact and signals a sense of humour and fun, but the highly efficient and sympathetic reinvention of the van also ensures that it’s able to deliver a product that meets the exacting standards of today’s coffee drinkers.

One of the most impressive features of the van is the use of materials like plywood and vinyl flooring that are not only necessarily light and hard-wearing but that also mirror the H van’s design aesthetic and are coupled with the history of the Citroen “workhorse.” Folding awning and opening panels provide the practical advantages of shelter and access, while also underlining the playful, toy-like nature of the van, further underlining this mobile business’s very distinct and very unique personality.”

BEST TEMPORARY DESIGN, HIGH COMMENDATIONS

Best Temporary Design, High Commendations / Gumtree Garden Pop-Up Bar, Sydney by Studio Yellowtrace. Photography by Nick Hughes. (Hooray!!!)

Best Temporary Design, High Commendations / Filter by DesignOffice. Photography by Hayon Cattach.

BEST IDENTITY DESIGN WINNER

Best Identity Design Winner / Seafarers by Inhouse (NZ). Photography by Dean Foster.

“Seafarers, a recently renovated building located on Auckland’s harbour front, has a strong maritime history (it once housed the Auckland Sailors’ Home) which has been cleverly reflected in its visual identity, not by way of logos but through a quieter, more organic graphic language that riffs on both geometric maritime flags and etching-like drawings of classic nautical imagery. One floor of the seven-storey Seafarers building is currently occupied by Ostro restaurant and bar, which uses the imagery on everything from menus and coasters to butter paper and the covetable T-shirts and aprons worn by the staff.

Eventually the building will house a series of hospitality businesses on every floor and the diverse but consistent visual design that’s painted on the street-level roller doors and lift doors, printed on labels for house wine and spirits and used for bathroom signage and beer tap lenses is strong, fresh and flexible enough to successfully encompass these future endeavours. It’s a refreshingly fun, bright and clever design with a strong sense of both purpose and playfulness.”

BEST IDENTITY DESIGN, HIGH COMMENDATIONS

Best Identity Design, High Commendations / Fiesta by Studio Equator. Photo by Andrew Wuttke.

Best Identity Design, High Commendations / Zeus by Layfield Design. Photo by Lindsay Ross.

HALL OF FAME

Hall of Fame / Meyers Place by Six Degrees (VIC). Photography by Peter Bennetts.

“It doesn’t really have a name other than its location and at night, after closing, it’s hidden behind an unmarked metal roller shutter, but the bar at 20 Meyers Place stands tall as a design template for Melbourne’s – and arguably Australia’s – small bar and laneway culture. The bar opened in 1994, a result of a change in Victoria’s licensing laws that allowed bars to sell alcohol without having to also serve food and the desire of a group of fledgling architects to create the kind of place that they wanted to socialise in, but which didn’t exist in Melbourne at the time.”

[Images courtesy of Eat Drink Design Awards. Photography credits as noted.]