David’s Restaurant Designed by Hecker Guthrie
During one of those random web searches I stumbled upon this cheerful restaurant, called David’s restaurant. I was not sure, but being located in Australia and Melbourne I had a feeling the design was by the famous -and very much becoming my favourite design studio- Hecker Guthrie. And of course this was the case!
The brief was “[…] to design a space that had a homely, country Shanghai feel”. The studio approached it by looking at only incorporating Asian references. They wanted to steer away from “[…] any form of pastiche […]”. For example this can be seen in the paper lanterns, by Arik Levy. The lanterns are a contemporary expression of the “[…] typical traditional Chinese lantern”.
I think the studio did a marvelous job also considering they were limited both budget- and time wise. In fact the studio said that many of the design decisions due to time constraints were taken on site. But their professionalism shined through those obstacles. Their best decision I think was to “obscure [ ..] the good bones of the warehouse […]”. As this gave them a head start of creating a contemporary over all feel.
Credit: Hecker Guthrie Photo by Shannon McGrath
This would surely be one of those places you visit, and every time it would feel as if you discover something new. Or what do you say?
