Field Trip

Last week our team on IDEA 2012 went on a field trip to see a prototype being made in the factory.

IDEA 2012 is a project to design an one-night-only award event with lots of restrictions in terms of time on site, ease of setup, structural challenges - whilst still producing something wow-worthy.
Anyhow, it is to be kept as a surprise for people attending, so my apologies about the hardly descriptive  image..

We are collaborating with people we previously worked with on Phamish, ah that old feeling.. and by the way have I mentioned that I LOVE seeing things coming together?  Well, now you know.

 

End of Day 8

We arrived on site at Bay Road Hair Studio on the 8th Day into construction, when it was starting to get dark outside.

There was an unspoken tranquility in the little space, within the lovely setting overlooking the bay outside.
The builders finished boarding up the wall frames, ready for tiling on the next day, and started working on the frames for the mirrors. The frames house a few functions: mirror, lighting, table for customers, hanger for hairdresser tools.. And we just threw in mitre corners to add to the fun.

We have worked with our builder Ken quite a few times now (Watermoon, Uchi Lounge, Phamish..) and it is funny how he always started out complaining about how tricky our projects are, but always ended up gracing over the projects with loving and proud glance.

 

 

 

 

Multiple Dimensions

Here comes our complementary copies of Hinge magazine, all the way from Hong Kong, covering our projects Water Moon, Habitat Antique, Phamish, and S House.

I liked the short description Hinge poised to introduce our practise;

...Growing in recognition, the duo (Olivia Shih and Yoshihito Kashiwagi) is poised to break into the relative 'medium-time' [someday bigtime...] ... Their work is clean and quietly imaginative, avoiding histrionics and not afraid of proposing practical, cost-efficient solutions to a client's brief.  Nothing wrong with simplicity....

Although I would not necessarily say that we intentionally avoid histrionics; the simplicity in our works is more so a reflection of our perspective on space and architecture.  

Maybe it is more appropriate to say that we avoid creating spaces that could be "consumed"? 

We aim for a beauty in the simplicity, which could be embedded in the materiality, the logic, the construction, and/ or the philosophy.

The physical space is the outcome of series of decisions we repeatedly examined throughout the design process, in order to reassure that we have not deviated from what we set out to do for each project.

There are times that we were distracted and lost... but then I always remembered that when we set up Facet Studio, we told ourselves that we will be creating meaningful design; when there is meaning behind our design, there is beauty in what we do.

parcel from Hong Kong!

Water Moon to the left, Habitat Antique to the right

Phamish to the left, S House to the right

Friday afternoon tea thanks to Soo Jin, who will be heading back to UK to complete her study shortly

Making of Phamish - Part II

Today lets talk about the lightbox at Phamish, following the previous blog entry on making of Phamish (HERE).

Half way through the design process, the client raised issue about something they had some serious problem with in the original shop - the lightbox.  It was also nicknamed the "lobster pot", or the "broomstick cupboard"..... the love showed in the naming.  Apparently it was shipped down from Gold Coast, costed a bomb and weighed a tone. Arrived smashed, it didn't deliver much light if any to the shop.  In order to relieve their agony, we had to come up with something in line with our design concept.

the original lightbox - this was as much light as it could deliver

...so this is what we proposed after a week of brainstorming.

together with the panels, the shop could have a festive atmosphere, quite so Chinese

One of the main imagery we had during design phase of the shop, was people dining amongst the field of chrysanthemum flowers, surrounded by the amicable and mysterious ambience.  By incorporating the lightbox into the scheme, and with the light projection on to the ceiling, it could add another dimension to the ambience we aimed to create.

Here are the process we went through to make the lightbox possible....

we had to create a 1:1 prototype to test out the lighting condition, to see if it actually works...

the sun filtered through the prototype cutout, looks like the idea could work

we then went into the restaurant after it closed at night, to test on site. It was difficult to see if it actually would work on site, because the lightbox had diffused fluorescent tubes as light source which was not too good at projecting shadows. With the success earlier with sunlight, we decided to replace fluorescent tubes in the lightbox with spotlights, in order to cast clearer shadows on to the ceiling.

electrician installing spotlight. We also decided to remove the dowels on the side (see earlier perspectives) because they were loosening up and could fall on patrons dining directly below

testing light effect with the new spotlights.......hmmmmmm........we could see "something"......

at that point there was no going back, we had to keep progressing with the new lightbox (it would still be better than what was there even if light projection didn't work)

miraculously after it was installed properly, the projection worked beautifully!!!!!

effect at night. Because the restaurant only opens for dinner, the lighting effect was of vital importance

sitting underneath the new lightbox, looking towards the wall panelling...surrounded by chrysanthemum flowers...

reopening night after (3 days of) construction. people dining amongst the chrysanthemum flowers in a festive atmosphere...exactly how we imagined!

With every project there are things we can not expect or test before we go for the real deal, but it is important that the decisions were made with background study and a level of confidence.

Try out Phamish and experience the ambience we have tried to create when you walk past it in Darlinghurst - their duck and prawn pancake is absolutely the best!

Making of Phamish - Part I

While we are approaching end of 2010 a.k.a. 2 years birthday for Facet Studio, I will be putting up some construction photos of older projects.

Found some old photos on Phamish construction....it feels like a long time ago!  Lets have a look of the process the panels went through...

The client approached us with an existing restaurant, requesting for "feature" incorporating "chrysanthemum" and "gold".  "Red" is the image colour of the restaurant with 10 years continual popularity, one hidden task for us is to inject a new image without sense of abruptness, and without interrupting operation of the restaurant operation.  Together with public holiday, restaurant weekly day off, and weekend, we had 3 days on site for construction.

original site condition

original site condition

The design process started about 8 months before the actual construction, to plan everything out.

As we have had extremely limited space to work with, we started by thinking that if the “new image” we were creating not only serves as graphic design, it would be fantastic if it could also contribute in creating a sense of expansion in space.

From here we focused on the “partition” as a system which softly defines the spaces and is widely utilised in Asia, then decided to randomly locate five “partitions” which features both “chrysanthemum” and “gold”.  As a result a space was formed between “partition” and the existing walls, which is where people can feel the sense of depth.  Furthermore, by dividing the chrysanthemums into five panels, the void between the sliced-open chrysanthemums gives room for more imaginary chrysanthemum to form in the human brain.

original perspective presented to client for design sign off.  We proposed partition system with laser cut chrysanthemum artwork to juxtaposition the solid and void for a rich lighting effect, and to stimulate people's imagination

We were inspired by Chinese traditional paper cutout for the chrysanthemum patterns. After going through several options of patterns, studied on perspectives, and settled on one design.  We then transformed the design to a suitable format in preparation for laser cutting.  Original artwork (c) Facet Studio

panels are being prepared for applying brass florentine after laser cut.

the brass was applied to the laser cut panels, then aged with patina and polished back

panels were delivered on site

first panel was up very soon. this panel has little issue with rear access so was relatively straightforward

while the first panel was being installed, we started installing new spot lights on the other side of the shop

electrician working to minimise the amount of cords visible. This is the difficulty with retrofitting or working within existing context.... we had to go under existing timber floor, and trim part of the light fitting to bring cables through.

new spot lights installed, equally distributed along the bottom of the wall.

now we can start installing panels on the other side.....but the distance between the ceiling and the floor is much smaller ....the panel is too long for the space..

unfortunately the panels had to be trimmed on site.

...now it fits!

one by one, panels were installed with some minor adjustments

all installed!

end of the day, client came for a visit. We all sat in the restaurant after 2 long days.... this was after a long 8 months of design, tender, studies, finally we sat in the space we have been imagining....(sigh with satisfaction)

Tomorrow I will talk about the lightbox ...another battle in Phamish!

vote for Phamish and Water Moon!

We are thrilled with the shortlisting of our projects - Phamish Darlinghurst and Water Moon - at one of the most prestigious interior design awards in Australia, Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA Awards) 2010.

Voting for IDEA Awards' Designer of the Year: People's Choice Award is now open to public, voting closes Nov 10.

Please vote for Facet Studio under either Phamish Darlinghurst (HERE) or Water Moon (HERE)!!

overview of Phamish - panels featuring chrysanthemum flowers can be seen enclosing the shop, and lightbox projecting patterned shadows on the left.  Our task was to utilise the colours red and gold, together with patterns of chrysanthemum flowers, to create modern Asian-ness for this Vietnamese restaurant

close-up of the panels with backlighting.  We scattered the panels to maximise the effects of the chrysanthemum flowers, and incorporated indirect lighting behind to give sensitivity to the space

close-up of the lightbox.  The chrysanthemum pattern is also projected onto the ceiling to complete the sense of being surrounded by the flowers

atmosphere of the seating area within the shop. one of the triggering imagery for us was the view of people dining amongst chrysanthemum flowers....

view of Water Moon from the street. The design intension of inserting a new space into the existing context is clearly visible

plywood floor platform works in with the panelling on the side, and provides a smooth transition of various floor levels throughout the shop. horizontality at the centre (stacking plywood panels at the bar, horizontal gap between bar and lightbox, and the general geometry of lightbox) forms a subtle contrast with the verticality to the side of the shop (linear lighting, vertical panelling)

backlit sake bottles in the lightbox emits subtle and gentle light to illuminate the space as a centre focus point; like the moon in the night sky..

close-up of plywood wall panelling. the panels form a new enclosure of the interior space within the existing old building by offsetting and expressing the differences; space within a space. The panels also incorporate concealed linear lighting to subtly envelop the space.