The Ludlow Formation is a new 600 m2 bar and restaurant and is the last of the venues to be finished as part of the recent redevelopment works to the ‘Riverside Quay’ buildings along Southbank. The existing concrete shell tenancy was to be transformed into a warm and inviting dining and drinking venue with flexible spaces.

Maddison Architects have decided to react against the nearby Casino and other shiny adjacent franchises by expressing something intrinsically more robust. The team was drawn to the nearby Princes Walk Vaults and the Banana Alley Vaults, which endure as ‘haunting’ Victorian engineering and architectural solutions to the river’s edge.

Collectively the idea of these river vaults, the generic condition of the cave-like concrete tenancy and the desire to exhibit a modestly robust venue all seemed to merge and conceptually charter the design. Throughout the venue all ‘structure’ is clearly expressed. All services are carefully integrated, fully exposed and the notion of ‘concealment’ has been avoided.

The internal layout aims to cater to a broad demographic and responds to the client brief for spatial flexibility. Traditional public bar, lounge and restaurant areas are defined by bar areas, sliding doors and a series of
curtains that isolate, encapsulate, or open up spaces for adaptability depending on the operator’s desire.

Material selections were made as an anti-response to other Southbank venues, with a direct intention of surprising adjacency, and an attempt to achieve a disquieting balance: i.e. raw against refined, warm
against cold, familiar against unfamiliar. A large part of achieving this was by using recycled antique oak parquetry in herringbone pattern to convey warmth, texture, contrast with other materials, create points of
interest and help to define and breakdown the various areas within the previously large and empty space.

The design uses the parquetry in unconventional ways: as soffits, wall linings, bar fronts and joinery items – reinterpreting in innovative ways the use of this traditional flooring material to create warm and inviting
spaces that tell a story through the parquetry. The character of the oak gives the space a feeling of being long established, and permanence, while evoking interest through creative use in the design.

Digital Living supplied and installed the audio including QSC ceiling speakers and AD-S52 surface mount speakers spread out throughout the venue. It was necessary for the speakers to be integrated into the design, and not stand out at all.

The main bar required a bit more oomph on certain nights and so QSC AD-S82H speakers were integrated into the poles, whilst subwoofers were hidden into the frame of the canapy.

“It might look like there’s not much there but when required - when they want a dance floor effect on certain nights - we can get some serious levels from it,” said Matthew Price, managing director of Digital Living. “Other times the area has more of restaurant style audio.”

Although it is one large venue, within this there are several zones: restaurant, terrace, restaurant terrace and the main bar. As it is essentially one big area there was not the possibility to have different music in different zones per se however the control is set up that way with Digital Living’s custom designed Venue Controller. Allen & Heath IDr8 DSP processing with RTI touch screens are located throughout the venue to control the audio levels as well as and set up different room scenarios with pre-programmed presets.

“That enables us to set up presets for different scenarios as well as automate the levels and the start up and shut down procedure,” said Matthew.

Nightlife Music‘s role was to provide this dynamic venue with the ability to morph throughout the trading day as it evolves from intimate understated spaces, to a vibrant meeting place later into the night.

Matthew Price worked hand in hand with Drew Carling from Maddison Architects to create an unobtrusive but flexible sound solution. Big boxy speakers would jar in this environment. Matthew carried through this brief to Nightlife’s Relationship Manager, Ben Wighton. Commercial music was never going to work here. Ludlow reflects concepts of urban and modern against a refined yet organic feel - and they needed the music to match. The venue has been set to play a non mainstream mix of acoustic chill and laid back city sounds, combined with down tempo organic grooves. This escalates throughout the day to edgy cafe beats in the night. The result… a seamless mix of music matched to the surrounds.

The obvious success of Ludlow is due to many elements and part of that is its remarkable audio experience. Early collaboration between the architects, the audio engineer (Digital Living) was vital to Nightlife’s brief. This enabled them to customise its massive music library to provide a music solution that matches this venues unique footprint and makes it a stand out venue on the crowded Southbank strip.