It photographs well. It wins design awards. But six months after the doors open there’s no-one inside.
What went wrong?
Many things feed into a great culinary experience. Not the least of which is the built environment. Why? Because from the front door to the loos, your built environment shapes your customers’ expectations. Don’t deliver on the promise and you might just lose them.
Mike tells me the first question to ask of any hospitality development is: what am I? A café? Beer hall? Fine dining establishment? This question triggers all other considerations, aesthetic and practical. Your concept, alongside your business plan – the who, how many, where, when and how much – ultimately determines the success of your project.
Imagine you have to transform a rustic wharf shed into an inviting eating establishment.
What’s more, you have to keep the character of the shed and do justice to one of Auckland’s best views.
Where do you start?
That was the challenge offered to Peter Parkin, owner-operator of the award-winning Jack Tar, in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter.
We talked to Peter about the architectural journey from shed to eatery.
By Mark Bates
Here are some things you wouldn’t want your pool to say.
I’m too hot. I’m too cold. I’m lonely. Is that slime?!
Having a good relationship with your pool starts with inspired design.
And design starts with you. Think broadly. How are you going to use your pool? For fun, for therapy, for entertaining, for exercise? Who will use it? Just you, you and your kids, your neighbours, your dog?
By Mike Davies
One of the biggest challenges you’ll face in creating your café or restaurant is making your vision meet your budget.
Ask any seasoned hospitality developer. They will probably tell you that the grand design of their architect was part of the cost problem.
As a hospitality architect myself, I couldn’t possibly comment.
Except to say this.
When you’ve been around the traps, you learn a thing or two. Here’s what I’ve learned that will help you create your establishment without needing to live in a garret eating mice for your first year trading. (Just the thought!)
By Mark Bates
We went through a phase of creating public pools in black boxes in New Zealand. Imported from Canada, the black box idea was a kind of shed, meets pool, meets theme-park fantasy. How did they work out? Not so well. Turns out, we want to connect to the outside. Disney-like ornamentation created safety issues like keeping the kids in our line of sight. And cleaning was a hassle.
A pool can be an expensive mistake. Don’t let it be yours.
By Angelique Praat
What am I?
It’s a compelling existential question. And one that you’ll need to answer for your café, restaurant or bar.
Even before they enter, potential customers will be assessing what they see, hear and smell to build their expectations about what will turn up on their plate or in their glass. You don’t want to disappoint. You want them to come in and come back and recommend you to their friends.
How do you nail this question and deliver on the answer?
Work with your architect.
Light and angles play an important role in the design of pool buildings. Keith Spry Pool Wellington. Source: Architecture HDT
By Mark Bates
Dip your toe in. Go on. How is the water?
Too hot, too cold, just right?
By the time you’re testing the temperature of the pool, several things have already happened.
By Angelique Praat
Facing south, overlooking Lyall Bay in Wellington, the Spruce Goose lives up to the fearless spirit of its name sake. For owner-operators, Nick and Gina Mills, the picture of Bruce the Goose in the doorway represents what they are – loose as a goose. We talked to Nick about designing and building Spruce Goose.
Read more .. appears in Architecture and Design NZ
By Mark Bates
I take my children to swimming lessons at a local school. The pool is now enclosed and heated with a single bench around the edge for spectators. Lovely. But in winter, you can’t lean against the wall without getting wet. Some days an umbrella wouldn’t go amiss. Changing rooms are designated BOYS ONLY- NO MUMS ALLOWED and GIRLS ONLY- NO DADS ALLOWED. If your kids have trouble dressing themselves you can’t enter those zones if you’re the wrong-sex parent. Result – kids getting changed in public around the edges of the pool. The swimming lessons are fabulous but the pool experience could be better.
How you do you design a facility to provide an inviting experience for all potential users?
By Mike Davies
In my 25+ years working with restaurant, bar, and café owners, I’ve learnt that successful businesses have three ingredients. Their owners have a clear focus on their customers, business smarts and an eye for creativity.
Those are precisely the ingredients you need to design and build commercially successful premises. The challenge of blending those ingredients keeps me passionate about architecture.
By Mark Bates
Why do we swim?
To relax? To exercise? To compete? To heal? To feel safe in the water? To socialise?
At different times, all of these things.
