The Challenge:
To warm up and transform the already established edgy music focused FASH CLUB into the new ART BAR, a gallery-meets-bar-meets-nightclub, located within the business district at One Fullerton. We wanted to convey two main principals that are important to the identity of the space. Random & Irreverence. We want the customer to essentially get lost in an audio and visual blend of random silliness, found fabulousness, junkyard chic and emerging beats. Art Bar today is what “cool” will be next week, next month, next year. All to reflect the club’s positioning statement “Helping you forget how you got home, since 2006”
The Solution:
Quite simply put, we just had to strip everything back to basics, create a raw, quirky, up-cycled, cosier more art focused space. Working closely with the client’s own creative workshop, we did this by up-cycling and re-purposing; creating something new out of the something old or unexpected. Everything from the furniture, lighting, wall treatments follows the same formula, branding included. Through use of hand crafted, up-cycled materials, bespoke furniture and art we give the space a unique identity with a familiar touch. Paint tins, buckets, old crates and car seats are turned into seating, oil drums become tables, detergent bottles and ‘rings of things’ (found objects hung on metal hoops) are used to create lighting. Basic materials such as old doors, bricks, metro tile, peeling plaster and plywood cover the walls. One bar looks like a tool shed, the other is made up of washing machine fronts like in an old launderette. A constant flow of artworks throughout the year refreshes the space, and provides an ever-changing visual scenery. As time goes on, the space will feel even more loved, as new art works and layers of events-past will emerge. This unpretentious design is cool without shoving cool down your throat, leading the way to a new future. Creating environments that combine music, art, design, fashion and bar culture. A high energy vibrant space with a strong ‘visual noise’ that challenges what is expected from a conventional nightspot. Created from something, and made into something “better” (the very design philosophy of up-cycling) is carried across the interior, art direction, branding and music. A place where visiting artists, creative minds and anyone who likes a good time can come and unwind and be exposed to art and design in a new and exciting way.
