A Heritage Listed Building Transformed

Using a series of horizontal and vertical surfaces in timber and steel, this heritage listed building is transformed into a refined restaurant/bar. Inspired by the beauty of the raw timber structure, a bold and complex design is implemented to create intimate, cohesive spaces that celebrate new and old materials alike.
Project Name
Headricks Lane
Case Study Type
Location

189 East St
Rockhampton City QLD 4700
Australia

Consultants
Architects

Overview

Headricks Lane is a refined restaurant/bar with an arresting interior, painstakingly distilled from a heritage listed building that suffered decades of unsympathetic alterations and decline. A strong, singular architectural language, inspired by the revealed beauty of the raw timber structure, draws together the expansive footprint into a series of intimate cohesive spaces. The client’s ambition for Headricks Lane was bold and complex – a space that would operate 18 hours a day, and span multiple and often contrasting customer moments: a refined evening restaurant and a bright and breezy brunch destination; an intense and edgy late-night bar as well as an engaging, localised microbrewery. To achieve this, the architect developed a strong, singular architectural language – expressed as a series of horizontal and vertical surfaces in timber and steel that collectively deliver lighting installations, zone compressions, tables and seating.

 

-23.3808956, 150.5156707

Structure

Internal Panelling: Victorian ash solid timber; Eco-Core poplar multiply veneered board laminated with white birch rotary cut veneer face

Doors: Blackbutt and spotted gum from Urbanline Cladding

Joinery and Cabinetry: Victorian ash

Interior

Faced with the structural constraints established by the heritage building, and the challenging multi-dimensional brief, this interior design effort pushed some important boundaries of what can be achieved in terms of light, shade, expansiveness, and intimacy.

The raw space had limited natural light and the existing heritage material, while quite beautiful, was dark. A bright airy feel was desired for daytime hospitality. This was achieved through a combination of sympathetic materials (e.g. blonde timber), grand, oversized timber pivot doors to front and back, white washing non-heritage brick and perforated, back-lit metal surfaces which had the effect of additional window-like lighting sources. These moves allowed the architect to draw out the beauty of both the new and old materials, while brightening the spaces.

Vertical and horizontal surfaces, particularly in timber, were used extensively to create separate spaces with distinct ambiences and intensity levels.

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