Project Team

Architect: Six Degrees

La Vita Buona is a cafe-bar-deli-wine shop in the heart of the city, designed by Melbourne’s Six Degrees. The walls of the intimate, cellar-like bar are lined with hundreds of wines – all available for consumption on-premise, or take-away.

The client wanted a retail wine sales shop that could also offer wines by the glass and a snack, etc and
a small function space. The frontage to the city square was very small with the space opening out as
you enter into it. This shape is a difficult one, basically a “cave” as type, not what is usually desired for retail.

The design approach tries to work with ideas of distict spaces within the cave and trying to keep
an awareness of the mouth of the cave/outside world for patrons. Putting some heavy masonary in this
little space was a bit counter intuitive, but it helps organize paths and circuits, offering protected spaces
to sit in, or a relaxed path to select a bottle of wine.

The narrow entrance incorporates an indoor-outdoor seating areas and this leads to a long, lean space with timber and tiled surfaces, recycled stained-glass features and a variety of seating options.