Serving top-shelf spirits, classic cocktails and premium beers, The Kitty is housed within the historic walls of the Treasury Casino.
With touches of gold throughout the decor, The Kitty echoes tones of elegance and class.

Rooms are themed in colour palettes of bright pink and purple and toned-down leaf green and silver, with black flooring and leather seating the common thread throughout.

The sensitivity of refurbishment of a space within such a notable building of high heritage importance, put forward huge challenges in designing a social sustainable space. Tonic’s design sought to utilise elements of the existing heritage fabric as a feature of the design story. Where possible they touched lightly on the existing building fabric and selected complimentary new design elements to enhance the spaces and the existing building materials. This was done with the knowledge that getting this right would draw new guests into the new space and potentially beyond into the casino building allowing more potential for the building to tell it’s historical story to people.

The new Treasury Casino Bar - The Kitty was born out of the client’s desire to create a 24 hour destination which offered a variety of guest experiences for a varied clientele. From this brief Tonic’s goal was to entice patrons to watch, to be seen, to meet, to escape, to relax, to enjoy and to share. Spatial hierarchy and relationships were carefully considered to provide individual opportunities for various types of

space. Connection of these spaces was important to unify the whole bar experience. The design formulated careful openings in existing heritage walls creating internal vistas and the use of feature pendant lights to assist visual links between spaces. Beginning at a new external entry, navigating to the bar as a central focal point, other spaces evolve, day lounge, dance floor, private booths, external terraces and beyond to the gaming floor.

Careful integration of various allied disciplines was required. A Heritage Architect, Mechanical, Electrical, Structural and Hydraulic engineers, AV, security etc. Also careful consideration of built form elements was required to incorporate the functional requirements of allied disciplines into the heritage building.

The design needed to reflect a continued successful example of revitalisation of space within a heritage building. In drawing new guests to The Kitty the design allows people to experience new aspects of this culturally significant building and highlights the importance of sympathetic re thinking of spaces to achieve timeline appropriate uses.

Creation of an identity for the bar as a whole as separate to and both part of the casino was a challenge. The previous bar had small doors

off a main thoroughfare to and around the main gaming floor of the casino. The proposed bar incorporated the main thoroughfare into the bar space therefore merging the two uses and highlighting the connections to other spaces within the building. Activation of a new external entry and external terraces allowed for the bars energy to be transported into the street and revitalised forgotten heritage entry stairs.

Careful integration of various allied disciplines was required. Heritage, services, AV, security etc. Also careful consideration of built form elements was required to incorporate the functional requirements of allied disciplines into the heritage building.

Aesthetically, black and gold reflective surfaces create a base material palette that is warm and inviting both day and night. This enables the space to be adapted across day and night service without losing its’ ambience. Soft Sheer Curtain fabrics created drama and movement in the vertical direction. Custom coloured rugs / carpets were used to highlight destination zones and create different mood effects across various room types.

A simple base dark colour scheme was selected. These colours stood as a great backdrop for carefully selected highlights of colour – golds, reds, greens yellows. Appended free form shapes delicately hang from walls and ceiling subtly referencing the fluidity of the existing neo- classical architecture to ‘soften’ the volume of the existing heritage space and create opportunities for unique lighting effects.

The ever present gold ball lights culminating over the main bar, assist with spatial orientation and guide users through the exploration of the various spaces.

Special features include the vertical fins throughout the space, in particular behind and on the front of the bar add volume without bulk to the space. A large central seat with gold fins form a morphisised gold ball that has in effect fallen from the ceiling and merged with the floor.