Prior is totally different to different venues alongside Excessive Avenue in Thornbury, Melbourne, and that is intentional. Melbourne studio Ritz and Ghougassian has made some foundational strikes right here and adopted via with a consistency and a spotlight to element that’s attribute of its work throughout varieties. The result’s a seamless expertise in a lofty, clear quantity that brings a degree of each playfulness and restraint to the Excessive Avenue strip.
The important transfer that defines many points of this inside is its inclination in the direction of tropes and visible cues of the nice outdoor, however introduced inside a clear warehouse quantity. The amount is stripped again to reveal partitions and uncovered roof construction. Even lighting is pushed right into a background function to create a excessive, unobstructed area with naked, uncovered trusses painted white to match the partitions. The choice to focus on and specific the peak and depth of the area instantly distinguishes Prior from its neighbour venues, which usually have decrease ceilings and extra dense detailing.
As talked about, the outside have been introduced inside at Prior. The palette is strong and performs in the direction of exterior finishes, with cream brick, pigmented concrete and black metal used liberally. Jean-Paul Ghougassian refers to this as a reaching for “eternal” finishes, and this may be discovered all through the studio’s folio.
The ground is an expanse of monolithic cream brick in a stack bond sample that continues to the design’s vertical aircraft, seen within the upstand of the counter. A formidable edifice in its personal proper, the counter is completed above the brick upstand in a particular apricot-hued concrete, poured in situ. It gives the look that it could survive an apocalypse, it’s so substantial.
The outside theme continues with the furnishings. The primary communal tables, wearing blackbutt, had been designed by the architects to mirror the enduring type of the standard picnic desk, with its lengthy bench seats. These tables had been constructed by Simply Eco Timber to Ritz and Ghougassian’s design. They’re organized down the centre of the principle quantity, in entrance of and behind the black-steel sluggish combustion range on its cream brick plinth, which is positioned in the direction of the centre of the room.
Tan, natural-finished leather-based banquette seating traces the northern wall of the room, paired with extra of the blackbutt-topped, steel-legged tables, and easy Ross Didier chairs set at every place setting. The chairs are pleasant, like a baby’s drawing of the essence of a chair, they usually swimsuit the area admirably effectively. The concrete counter seating is positioned on the southern edge, with excessive variations of the identical chair lining the counter.
Remaining particulars within the area draw on the austerity of the inherited black-steel shopfront glazing and framing, a function the designers sought to embrace slightly than substitute. The greeting station, level of sale and waiters’ stations are completed in black metal to mirror this reference, as are the drum planters with eucalyptus timber. In fact, the sluggish combustion range and firewood cupboard are made from this materials too. These black components all through the area complement and punctuate the apricot and tan hues of the brickwork, timber and concrete.
Prior opened mere weeks earlier than the COVID-19 lockdown remodeled all of our lives, so it’s but to hit its stride. The restaurateur’s intention for the cafe, as soon as the lockdown is lifted and the venue can begin doing greater than serving takeaways, is to current patrons in Thornbury with regionally grown and sourced produce, cooked effectively and introduced merely. Ritz and Ghougassian has offered Prior with a framework for such a easy aspiration – one that’s equally direct, earthy and grounded.