After being invited to take over a lease of a subpar café, our client’s brief was to transform a dark, dated and dingy space into a bright, contemporary eatery, and refresh the informal entry to the commercial office building. Collaborating with the clients and graphic designer, the brief was simple, the energy high and the budget low.

The design response was initially to strip back the heavy dated fixtures and furnishing and rationalise and simplify the internal built form of the space to retain successful elements. We then embraced the ‘white’ of the existing building while using moments of curated colour to soften the space; Green being the hero colour. The scope extended to the outdoor dining area and further enhanced by curated landscape in existing planters.

The result is a bright and inviting eatery which confidently occupies a key ground floor site on the tourist trail of Worcester Boulevard.

2022 NZIA Local Award (Canterbury) — Hospitality, Winner

2022 NZIA — Resene Colour Award

This clean, crisp fit out serves up a light, bright re-invigoration of a central city café. The architects’ collaboration with the client and graphic designers has resulted in clever use of colour and typography; subtle references to a well-resolved ‘doubles’ theme can be seen across the fit out, furniture, and branding. Prefabricated componentry, lush bursts of soft landscaping, and an expansion into the adjacent building lobby space make the most of this project’s small budget. The result is a bright and inviting eatery that confidently provides a welcoming retreat from the busy tourist trail of Worcester Boulevard.