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| | RADARINTERIOR Reflectivity and depth. The play between glossy and matt surfaces lends a subtle complexity to a simple restaurant fitout by Kerstin Thompson Architects. Review by Justine Clark.
Photos Trevor Mein.
| Review |
Ah Mu is named in the Age Good Food
Guide as Melbourne’s “Best Malaysian”, a
“modern restaurant in every sense”. There is
a kind of analogical relationship between the
sophisticated food and the refined interior in
which it is presented. Each is both elegant
and witty, familiar and unexpected. The fitout
plays the kind of minimalist games that we
have come to expect of stylish restaurants,
but it does so with a twist, making it slightly
strange – and rather more engaging.
With most of the budget spent on the
workings of the kitchen, the intimate, elegant
dining spaces are the result of simple
inexpensive moves: the judicious insertion of
planar elements into an old shop space and
the thoughtful application of colour.
Opening directly off the street, a brief
threshold space is implied by a narrow strip
of remnant pressed-metal ceiling above the
front of the lower dining space, and by
various planes which accumulate around it,
but never actually touch it. Two dark blade
walls frame the entry, stopping short of this
fragment. The main ceiling plane floats
below and two perforated screens hang
from the edge of this new ceiling. These
simple spatial devices are skilful and
effective, but what is remarkable about this
interior is the use of colour and the
exploration of the effects of surface
characteristics on colour perception.
The lower dining room has been coated
in a pale eau-de-Nil, with a vibrant pink
band juxtaposed against it along one side –
a kind of nuanced version of a
complementary colour pair. Richness and
depth is further generated through the
rendering of these coloured surfaces –
through the play of the gloss coat against
the matt. These differing finishes reveal
different aspects of the surface onto which
they are painted – the matt seems to suck
light in, while the reflections that glance off
the new shiny skins betray the blemishes of
the walls on which they are coated. These
two conditions also lead to quite different
impressions of the colours themselves.
On one side of the long space, the
gleaming pale green wall becomes a kind of
screen for hazy mirrored movement. Lights
and cars from the road beyond, elegant fluid
movements of the waiters, the more erratic,
yet more restricted movements of the diners,
the opposite wall – all blur into a soft moving
sheen. This is punctuated by small pools of
light thrown by a series of short fluorescent
tubes marching along the top of the wall.
On the opposite wall the action is all
above head height, and rather more
dramatic. Here the glimmer comes from the
play between different finishes, not the
reflective properties of a single element. The
singularity of the pink band is complicated
by its segmentation into flat and shining
sections. They have the same pigmentation,
but perceptually this is not always clear. As
one looks, these segments shift and change
– the matt seems deeper, denser and
darker, the gloss pushes forward, lifting out
of the wall plane and picking up colour
attributes from around the room.
Colours, especially colours such as these,
are still often derided as the realm of the
“decorator”. At Ah Mu a new coat of paint
has lead to a speculative space where
colour is active and architectural, and where
we are reminded of the perceptual richness
that might be created when light bounces
off a surface allowing us to see the
complexity of colour. This project has been
completed for a year or two now, but –
unlike certain other “architectural” restaurants in Melbourne – it still sparkles
and intrigues. Both owners and diners have
understood how to inhabit and enjoy it.
Justine Clark is assistant editor of Architecture Australia
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| Project Credits |
Architect Kerstin Thompson Architects—Design architect Kerstin Thompson; project architect Michelle Black. Builder Smart and Cain.
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Copyright © 2010 Architecture Media Pty Ltd
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