For Melbourne interior designers, creating boutique bars, restaurants and nightlife venues is a fantastic avenue for expressing creative freedom and pushing design boundaries.
With the city known for its fantastic laneway bars and eclectic nighttime venues, Melbourne designers are not unused to competition in this particular interior design sector.
It follows, then, that when the Australian Institute of Architecture (AIA) introduced the Ketel One Bar Design Competition, there would be tough competition in Melbourne.
Run in collaboration with the Emerging Architects and Graduates Network (EmAGN) and the sponsors, Ketel One, the competition invites graduate design students nationally to create and develop a bar that will be used at the National Awards.
Not only will winners have the chance to garner competition and design experience through the project development process, they will also have their work on display in front of some of this country’s most prominent architects.
Melbourne design practice Y2 Architecture outpaced a field of 34 entries in a unanimous jury decision, with the firm’s design covering the three main criteria of functionality, style and innovation.
The jury notes that the bar, developed with materials salvaged from architecture offices, ‘has a beauty and a poetic quality to it as well as a thorough understanding of assembly, bar usage and adaptability.’
“The repetitive design using simple materials allows a clarity of design with subtle changes- the undulating form suggests a ‘K’ which references the Ketel One brand, the tube can be used to grow fresh mint, to hold bottles, to hang glasses, and to contain lighting,” says the jury.
In addition to the Melbourne winners, three other firms received special commendations. T.Sushi was recognised for its submission The Flow Bar, Mark McQuilten and Ben Attrill were commended for Sleeper Cell and DE atelier architects were lauded for MOED.
The exhibition of these winning results will mean acclaim for graduates in the design industry and will provide them with a platform for further professional development. Melbourne firms continue to set the bar high in terms of night life design acumen, offering a major challenge for designers in other states to meet.
