Unpretentious. Understated.
Client: Showcase/Richard McCabe
Agency: String Theory. ECD, Jeremy Taine. Concept designer, Nic Hall. Graphic designer and artworker, Tim Blower. Client manager, Bonnie Carboon
Project manager and designer: Jason Dempsey
Photography: Josh Griggs
Agency: String Theory. ECD, Jeremy Taine. Concept designer, Nic Hall. Graphic designer and artworker, Tim Blower. Client manager, Bonnie Carboon
Project manager and designer: Jason Dempsey
Photography: Josh Griggs
Detail: The interior colour palette is deliberately understated, working off the raw construction materials of concrete, blackened steel, galvanised steel and American Oak timber flooring and furniture. Lighting is equally raw, dramatic and the only source of colour. Exposed construction flouro tubes, LED strip lighting hanging between the concrete culvert booths and 1970's orb street lights suspended over the bar, give the space its intended stripped back, darkened urban mood.
Detail: Normally seen in a more rural environment these four tonne concrete culverts are used to ensure livestock can cross busy roads bisecting farm trackways. A stroke of interior design ingeniuty from Jason Dempsey meant easing - in the middle of the night - four of these precast giants into their new, unconventional role as bar seating booths.
Detail: To highlight the understated, unpretentious values of the Underpass brand and the importance of music to the experience in the bar, particularly after 10.00pm, the staff simply wear a branded t'shirt and a 'backstage pass' style lanyard and ID.
Detail: Exterior signage is unpretentiously utilitarian and municipal in its style and exection. A steel faux 'I' beam hangs outside the bar, adorned only with a white neon - not a wordmark, simply the logo.
