Restaurant & Bar Design Awards

Nicholas Alexander collaborated with Levy Restaurants to design a functional scheme for Space 5, one of five pop-up bars at this year’s Restaurant & Bar Design Awards ceremony.

Our design was a study in efficiency, celebration and approachability. Having been given the brief of housing the food preparation for the evening, it was important to create a space which showcased and celebrated not only the materials but the work going on and made it easy for those working inside to create the spectacular food on offer on the night. The design team were also focussed on creating a ‘hub’ area – something which guests on the night felt drawn to approach, enjoy and gather around.

Nicholas Alexander used the Box to define space within the larger courtyard area. The organization of the space is a breakdown of 3 intersecting cubes which reduce in material volume and density at each step. This results in a series of voids an openings where the activities and production inside are framed and celebrated.

The main material was provided by Lathams – Dendrolight panelling which is an innovative timber product with a latticed core providing excellent structural capability for its size and weight. We chose to work on a ribbed structure to further express the materiality of the object through displaying and celebrating this core.

Giving Space 5 drama and heightened experience was very important and to do this, we worked with two lighting companies. We used LED light sheet from Applelec to create simple but beautiful furniture, and Firefly Lighting worked on the main structure to enhance the form. Overall, Space 5 formed a central meeting point for the awards, a space where guests gathered, discussed and appreciated the great quality food, skill and design on show throughout the evening.

Havana Club Mojito Embassy

Nicholas Alexander worked with Campaign Design and M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment to create The Havana Club Mojito Embassy.

The Embassy’s ‘Mojito Market’ forms the heart of the bar, encouraging guests to gather their own fresh ingredients from street trolleys piled high with mint and lime. After stocking up on ingredients, a team of Havana Club bartenders guides them through the art of making Cuban mojitos.

We were tasked with developing and fabricating a set of components so that on site, the install would create a seamless, whole experience. Given the particular atmosphere Havana wanted to create, we were able to employ our skills in specialist finishing techniques to create hand painted signage alongside distressed, stained timber joinery elements and bespoke steel framing.

As well as the fabrication itself, we also handled the touring and associated logistics and the installation into different venues, each with their own challenges. On site our team were able to make appropriate adjustments whilst working with local crew to ensure that the Embassy became a part of the fabric of each building it visited.

The pop-up event will be touring throughout Europe in the summer of 2013 after initial events in Milan, Edinburgh and Lisbon last year.

JackpotJoy Duck

Nicholas Alexander was approached by Fever PR to take on the challenge of floating a 50ft inflatable rubber duck along the river Thames for online bingo brand – Jackpotjoy.com

We were hired for our extensive experience of delivering complex and large scale projects in a challenging environment. Initially, we acted as consultants to develop a viable plan for delivery which we ourselves then carried out.

The duck was a test of our risk management and problem solving abilities and saw us visiting Leavesden film studios (the only sufficiently large indoor space) to test run the inflation and structural support of the duck before she set sail on a beautiful December’s day. The high-risk scheme was delivered flawlessly and received much media attention – the perfect project!

Samsung Brand Exhibit

The Nicholas Alexander team worked with Campaign Design and Samsung to deliver the Samsung Brand Exhibit and create a visceral experience for guests at Samsung’s annual Forum.

We successfully drew upon our extensive experience and resources to deliver this stunning, complex project in a very short time frame. We were responsible not only for the general project management and logistics of the project, which covered procurement, supply chain management, fabrication and installation in Monaco, but also for a host of more detailed roles.

We moved the project on from design intent to delivery through a process of detailed technical design and fabrication, including the multipart AV requirements and the invention of a system of removable technology mounts. We used our experience in digital fabrication to create these bespoke units which made the transportation and installation of the Samsung technology as secure as possible.

This project proved that with our ‘can do’ attitude, we consistently deliver even the most ambitious projects.

Guinness Submarine

To celebrate Guinness’s 250th anniversary we worked with Jump Studios to create a bespoke submarine/bar which navigated its way to the depths of the Baltic around the Stockholm Archipelago in Sweden.

It took a lot of research to find a set of specifications we ought to be working to – finally settling on the American standards for submersible vessels. This led our choice of materials, using an advanced fire retardant and low de-gassing GRP.

We then surveyed the interior of the sub, paying extra attention to the two small access hatches we were going to have to pass all the interior components through! We knew that we would have to basically fit a ship in a bottle, so we set about making a mock-up of both the interior of the vessel and a hatch to test out passing all the parts through safely.

From our plans and cross sections, Jump studios produced designs for a series of different sectional elements which produced the interior and all the functionality required for the event. We then added in the provision for necessary services, air supplies, lighting and emergency access to oxygen masks, before producing a set of CNC cut moulds.

We installed all the interior components in Sweden in arctic conditions on the dockside over a 6 day period. The sub was launched a few weeks later for sea trials before the main event which saw completion winners enjoying a pint of Guinness deep below the surface!

The Herd

Nicholas Alexander worked in collaboration with designer Alexander Mulligan to create a site-specific installation, at J+A Cafe during Clerkenwell Design Week, May 2013, and into June.

J+A Café’s outdoor courtyard area would have once been a busy thoroughfare for cattle en-route to Smithfield market. We responded to this old area of London and the history behind its ancient Drovers by designing an architectural structure that illustrates the narrative, movement and energy which would have existed on those grounds many years ago.

Restaurant & Bar Design Awards

As a partner in the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards, we get involved in the design and construction of the awards themselves.

In addition, in 2011, we produced an extra sub-project. The idea was to bring together the material sponsors for the awards, the short-listed designers and the restaurant operators through the production of bespoke canapé trays. We set a brief for the designers, and worked with them to develop the designs into finished products.

The trays were used on the night to serve specially created canapés to a very appreciative audience of top design talent and industry insiders. We thought they ought to look great and work flawlessly, so….

Games Com

For Gamescom 2009 Nicholas Alexander co-created and built a groundbreaking stand for Bethseda Software.

The brief was to recreate Bethesda’s game, Brink, in the real world. Nicholas Alexander devised a three dimensional environment inspired by the two key aspects of the game: a dystopian container city and a utopian floating island. Thus visitors could preview the game and experience it three dimensionally and leave the stand feeling as though they have lived the game.

We worked closely with Root design studio to develop a layout with real functionality. It included two screening rooms, a game demo area and a fully immersive 360 degree cinema. And in the middle of it all, a peaceful, utopian floating island featuring projected footage from within the game and a large sculpture of the game’s iconic tower.

All the elements were created from scratch, from raw materials, and to a class 1 fire resistance. The entire project was delivered in 8 weeks from concept to opening in Cologne, thus proving that a tight deadline doesn’t have to limit your creativity!

Sony T5

We were approached in 2010 by PD3 to take a project for Sony from its preliminary stages to completion. There was already an agreed structural design that had been submitted to the airport operator, in this case BAA. Our role was to deliver the project as per the visual plan, and fulfil all of BAA’s stringent technical demands, and fit the whole object through a security scanner!

We rationalised the existing project plans, and produced our own construction plans which were submitted and agreed to by BAA. At all points we also needed to consider the requirements of Sony, and deliver a high quality object in a very short lead time.

Despite some teething problems with the incumbent logistical company at the airport, we worked through the night over a period of two weeks to complete the installation.

PD3 had produced an innovative 360 degree immersive film that we showed on Sony hardware in the centre of the stand. We also included space for product display, a projection onto the ceiling, and a constantly moving spiral of coloured light.

This was a project that required extremely close collaboration on all elements, and throughout the process we pushed the boundaries of material supply chains, on-site installation processes, and put a large and structurally difficult object in one of the most controlled environments in the country – Heathrow’s terminal 5.

Modern Pantry

The Modern Pantry is a restaurant in Clerkenwell occupying a converted Georgian townhouse. For this project we worked with Jump Studios on a range of tables and vanity units. In keeping with the setting we worked in solid timber using traditional techniques, as well as some more contemporary designs.

For the smaller tables in the main restaurant space, we laser etched motifs of Georgian kitchen equipment into the surface of the Himacs solid surface tops. These were then in-filled with acrylic colours to increase the contrast of the designs, and mounted on hand-turned pedestal bases with cast aluminium lower sections.

Also in the main space we created a 4.8m long refectory table, with large hand-turned timber legs and a top tiled in an intricate pattern of constructional ash veneers. This allows for communal dining, and provides a focal point for the space.

Throughout the other areas of the restaurant we produced a range of bespoke solid ash tables, with cnc machined cabriole legs. It’s this mix of traditional materials and modern production techniques that best represented Jump’s vision for the whole building.