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BARS, RESTAURANTS and other leisure spaces have had to navigate some very choppy waters throughout the post-pandemic period. Te cost of living has stirred up a double-whammy of price-conscious consumers and rising overheads for all in the sector, making it more important than ever to deliver something special enough to shape priority destinations for customers.
Innovation remains as important as ever, but with a real understanding that investment in interior schemes has to do far more than just follow the trends or provide a note of curiosity for visitors. Te role of interiors in defining the entire brand has become vital, and this demands a bold, coherent and distinctive
creative vision that tunes in to the DNA of the business and its customers.
As well as speaking to some of the designers who
are shaping such enticing spaces, we assess a few examples of projects that have harnessed uniquely creative ideas to set themselves apart in a highly competitive hospitality field. From a multinational burger chain utilising interior specification to help its environmental goals, and a bar dedicated to taking guests on a cosmic journey, to a ping pong parlour situated in one of London’s most iconic new developments, there are a wealth of remarkable projects that are striving to lead the way in differentiating and innovating in order to capture visitors’ imaginations.
Interview Matt Smith
Shed
Matt Smith, co-founder at Shed, on why delivering escapism is key to creating spaces that people really want to visit…
What is your own career background and what was the path that led you to working within hospitality architecture and design?
Above Shed developed a complete, new brand transformation for the opening of Bounce Battersea, with a brief to serve up a fresh new personality with bold new colours and graphics
Although I graduated in interior architecture and design and then worked within traditional retail design, I soon realised that commercial environments are just extensions of the overall brand expression. I then worked with several brand agencies and helped build experiences within the built environment, and this led to
the creation of Shed in 2000. After creating spaces for Prada and Sony in the early days, clients started to see we were doing things differently and came to us more and more for original thinking. In 2011, we burst onto the hospitality design scene with MEATliquor. Back then, MEATliquor didn’t have a permanent home. We supported them with interior architecture and brand inception, which led to bringing the trailblazing company, I Love Dust, to the table and with that, the anarchic burger revolution began. From there, things grew for us and we have gone on to lots of different things since.
KRIS HUMPHREYS PHOTOGRAPHY
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