102 DECORATIVE & DESIGN / PROJECT
All pics: Alastair Lever
Á LA CART HOUSE
Balancing the traditional and contemporary, the Coach House restaurant on the historic Hatfield House estate has widened its appeal thanks to a new look by SHH architects.
Like many of the UK’s stately homes, Hat- field House has long embraced a program of diversification as a means of generating the funding required to support the historic property and its grounds. In 2009 Lord Salis- bury commissioned Brooks Murray Architects to create a new masterplan for the Hatfield Estate, one that would expand alternative revenue sources, as well as improve year- round visitor access to the grounds. Among the proposals were plans to renovate the former coach house and surrounding stable buildings to create a new restaurant and retail facilities.
Though the coach house already operated as a tea-room for visitors to the grounds, its simple format was no longer considered equal to the demands being placed on it by the high volume of customers. Levy Res- taurants took on operations at the venue, bringing in architect and interior consult- ant SHH to create a facility with day-long and year-round appeal. The two firms had previously worked together on the Barbican Foodhall and Barbican Lounge in London and
the success of those designs - both win- ners at the 2011 Restaurant & Bar Design Awards – promised great things for the new venture.
The brief was to create a venue that would provide a quality food service offer for visi- tors to the new attractions in the grounds; tenants of the office space in the adjacent buildings; visitors to the main house in season and destination visitors from the sur- rounding area, where good eateries were in relatively short supply.
SHH worked very closely with Levy Restau- rants’ in-house Innovations Team on the development of the design concept for the Coach House project. The guiding design principle was for the restaurant to look at home in its nineteenth century setting, whilst at the same time being undeniably contemporary. The key to achieving this was selecting materials that made direct reference to those used in the surrounding buildings; using them in an almost hand- crafted manner and applying them to very simple forms. “As we were designing a
Right Hand-blown glass pendants from Niche Modern inject a subtle splash of colour into the space.
Below Buffer Lamps, designed by Eindhoven-based Wieki Somers, hang above the stairwell to the new first floor area.
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