Nic Brunner

Nic Brunner on the process of designing a successful bar

“A great bar is a place to lose yourself for a few hours.

“If you want to encourage people to drink more and stay longer, the place must hold their interest - and bind them together.

"Ultimately people hang around because of the level of staff, the vibe, the type of people they let in, but you can try and help that by bringing people together in a social sense, in the way they sit together and how everyone shares the experience.

“To create a place where people feel good and like going to, that’s the challenge. A lot of the time it's an intangible thing. They don't know why they like a place but it feels good - the feng shui of the place.

“Ultimately I design for myself. If I like something it tends to works. There are some bits of every project I like and some bits I don’t. Generally I don't try to do anything twice. I’m not a perfectionist in every sense, but I like finishes to be done well.

“Probably 90 percent of people don't notice the level of finishes, but I've been cursed in that I do. When you’re doing it you can get stuck on details and when the club’s open you look back you realize you argued for two days on how to finish a corner and no one will see it anyway.

"With Cloudland, everything wasn't designed from day one, so right up to opening we were still choosing things. That's how it usually works with me. A lot of the time I need time limitations to force my ideas out. So sometimes I keep putting things off, but once I realise what needs to be done, it's easy. I don't have to revisit it.

"This project was different from what I have done before. Most other clubs have been more of a decorating thing where the main emphasis has been on what goes into the place - what light fittings are made, what carpets and fabrics and bar finishes. This has been more of a structural and building process.

“Because Cloudland is a restaurant that opens for lunch, not just a nightclub, more effort was required getting the finishes and detailing just right.

" In clubs you can hide a lot at night, whereas this is very visual. We're using more real things - whereas in clubs you can get away with turning the lights down and making things more hidden.

" If I’m doing a dance club, it's a big shed; I wouldn't go to this extent. But here we are spending a lot more time on detailing and money on finishes.”