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Yagiz is designed to be both familiar and intriguing, whether you’re having a casual drink after work or impressing a date with a fine-dining experience. For the owners and staff, it is both flexible and pragmatic, with the ability to easily shift from brunch, lunch to dinner service.

Behind a charming heritage facade, we were faced with a blank, empty space that had been designated for hospitality as part of a new apartment building in South Yarra. Along with chef Murat Ovaz, the developers created a concept for a Turkish restaurant and bar that accommodated both day and evening service.

We decided that it should be the food not the fit-out that brought the Turkish flavour to the restaurant. A warm and hospitable material palette of concrete, timber, steel and brass brings character and authenticity to this newly constructed environment. Drawing on the existing structural blockwork, we continued it as a masonry layer that is then broken to expose the walls and windows behind. The jagged-edged blockwork simultaneously adds depth, frames the pass to create a dramatic focal point, and creates a ‘garden bed’ for planting that acts as a green filter between the tables and the street.

The restaurant is configured around a long central brass table with timber banquette seating, while individual black steel tables for couples and small groups line the walls. This arrangement can be shifted according to the time of day or the size of groups. While the plan is open and flexible, it was also important that the dining experience was personal and intimate, so the lighting is kept low to create a sense that each group of diners exists within their own ‘bubble’. A custom-made Archier Capital pendant was made to the dimensions of the long central table, complimented by hanging spotlights over the smaller tables.

In the more casual front bar, instead of the dramatic industrial concrete blockwork of the restaurant, we uncovered the original red brick walls to continue the theme of exposed masonry, with high stools and tables enabling the space can be used for both brunch service in the day and for drinks and nibbles in the evening.

Location: South Yarra, VIC

Builder: CBD Contracting Group

Size: 320m2

Completed: 2018

Photography: Peter Bennetts

About the
Professional

Archier creates engaging architectural spaces and bespoke products, with an emphasis on honest, responsive design and efficient construction.

ARCHIER is an architectural practice with studios in Hobart and Melbourne. We work across residential and commercial sectors and have a particular interest in the relationship between architecture and landscape. We are a privately owned company and have four principals. One of our four directors is also Landscape Architect and this gives us a unique skill-set to work seamlessly across the two domains of Architecture and Landscape.

We work across a range of scales; for a range of clients. Our work encompasses residential, commercial and government architecture; public and private landscape projects; as well as the design and manufacture of furniture and lighting products

Our innovative designs are focused on material honesty, thermal performance and constructability, as we strive for affordable and responsive architecture that contributes to the public domain.

We are interested in projects that span architecture, urban design and landscape and embrace the mantra that design is delivery. Our practice utilises BIM extensively to automate and streamline our design work-flow and we are increasingly leveraging BIM to not only aid and support the delivery and construction of our work; we are also using it directly with Off Site Manufacturers to automate the production of timber based floor, wall and roof elements directly from the coordinated design model.

Our directors have over 25 years of combined industry experience and were drawn together to create an inclusive practice that is truly outcome orientated. We have won awards across a range of disciplines connected to the built environment that recognise our design excellence and innovation, along with our commitment to sustainable buildings and the environment.

As a practice, we have worked on large scale commercial projects with a construction value in excess of $100M through Joint Venture arrangements with Hayball Architects and we have lead multidisciplinary teams for complex commercial projects over $5M in value.

We relish the opportunity to work collaboratively with clients and large project teams to incorporate specialist knowledge and expertise into our work. We are data driven and focused on quality project outcomes. We have proven project experience leading complex projects in sensitive environments and have been recognised for our contextual approach to design.

We have also been awarded for our approach to sustainability and always seek not only to optimise the thermal performance of our buildings, but also to consider the life cycle cost of our material choices.