Project Team

design: Taylor Robinson
av: POV
lighting: Electrolight
music: Nightlife

Suppliers

fabrics: Kvadrat Maharam
tiles: Surface Gallery, Original Ceramics, Ibrahim International, Arte Domus, Academy Tiles,
lighting: Vistosi, Skygarden pendant, JSB lighting, Euroluce

Photos: Acorn Photography

The Merrywell is a new venue that sits at the heart of a wider expansion and refurbishment of the entertainment precinct at Burswood, recently upgraded and rebranded by Crown Perth.

The site resembles somewhat of a peninsula within the precinct, and the architectural response was to create an oasis at this otherwise busy nexus of the site. The curved external edge of the venue welcomes visitors to the complex, and the screened alfresco space, a collaboration with the superstructure architects) leads the eye around the building, negotiating the interface between public, semi public and private space.

The design was commissioned once the superstructure had already been designed and documented, with major structure already on site. Hence the design process was relatively tightly programmed, with a number of structural and construction detailing parameters already set. For instance, the curved arched beams in the façade had to be designed to work with the already partially constructed façade, which posed some limitations and opportunities for detailing and documentation.


Symetrix Solus 8

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Production Audio Services

The organic shaped plan considers the project’s various interfaces with the gaming floor, hotel, convention centre and theatre. The relationship to the gaming floor was a key design influence, where some level of connection was desirable for operation and ambience, but vision was to be strategically obscured, arising from gaming legislation. Another important design decision was to sacrifice some floor area to create a landscaped light well, creating a better connection to the outside and flooding the function area with daylight, and by night providing glimpses to the hotel port cochere beyond.

Internally, the large volume of available space was carved up into distinct ‘rooms’ such as the lounge, banquette dining, the more intimate sunken dining, the casual long bar and the ‘blue room’ which can be used for private functions.

Despite being pitched to local, interstate and international patrons alike, the desire was to create a modern, yet slightly rustic ambience, that would also allow the pub to exude something particularly Western Australian about it.

The building facade is expressed both internally and externally, with weathered Marri cladding sourced from a local timber yard, imbuing the facade with warmth and a sense of place, taking its cues from the idea of an unravelled wine cask. The Marri is meticulously cut around

large pre-fabricated steel archways that sweep around the facade. Curving in both plan and elevation, the complex archways were the result of close collaboration with the structural engineer and contractor. Precast concrete pipe planters greet patrons at the alfresco entry, and off-form concrete is used throughout the venue as a nod to the site’s past as a cement factory, prior to its reincarnation in the 1980s.

The idea of the venue as an oasis lent itself to the incorporation of tree motifs into the graphic acoustic wall and ceiling panel as well as the abstracted custom cut plywood tree elements that punctuate the lounge and sunken dining areas. Several feature vertical elements, created in conjunction with a specialist contractor, were used as devices to provide relief between the spaces whilst retaining varying levels of visual connection and differing qualities of daylight, such as the dappled light that streams though stacked glass wine ‘bottle walls’.

Black Feature long ‘trumpet’ pendants are dotted along the curved banquette, and help to draw the eye around the venue, whilst providing some variation in height and placement of light along the dining area.

Amber bell shaped Vistosi Nevanza pendants follow the gentle sweep of the main bar, whilst knotted rope lighting externally provide a more robust yet gentle solution to the outdoors.

The lounge area is lit more subtly by small uplighters on each of the feature plywood vertical blades, both lighting the space, whilst providing accentuation and to these screening and spatial elements.

A particular special features incorporated into the project is the folding graphic upholstered wall to ceiling panel uses an abstracted tree graphic which is randomly backlit to define the functions area in what has become known as the ‘blue room’, with distinctly different décor and ambience to other parts of the venue, and was designed to be both a daytime functions area, with views to the bamboo filled light well. This light well was created within the existing shell of the building, in order to maximize connection to outdoors and frame views between the venue and the rest of the entertainment complex.

A favourite design solution is the custom designed and fabricated bottle wall, serves as a space defining element, yet also allows glimpses and dappled light through what is otherwise a large object within the space. Using a variety of green, clear and amber wine bottles set within a glazed and raw steel frame, these are lit from above and also from the side with small hanging feature pendants susepended at tdifferent heights to reinforce the random framing of the bottles.

The bathroom doors are also custom fabricated, with recycled marri timber battens echoing the building façade material, set in a raw steel frame, and a side panel of glass bricks, to allow vision of light and shadows beyond.

Point of View opted to install EAW speakers ( MK8196 / JF60/ JF8/SBK250/SBK150/CIS 400/ ) with EAW UX880 speaker management and a Symetrix Solus 8 digital signal processor.