Project Overview “His sourdough loaves are extraordinary, full of yeasty flavours, as are his crisp baguettes. However, brioche is the star of the show...The Danish pastries are the best in town, as is the stollen at Christmas time” – Foodies Guide to Melbourne
How do you, as the appointed architect, do justice to a Paul Bocuse trained French bakery serving the (official) best sourdough in Melbourne when it decides to open a new flagship store in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs? A bakery that The Age calls “wonderful”, with a decades-old, rabidly loyal following that will hang and quarter you for anything less than perfect?
You close your eyes, you pray that all your years of experience and training are up to the challenge, and then you set about designing a modern temple to dough that is as delectable as the treats it houses. One that showcases “pesto-smeared pizza scattered with vine-ripened cherry tomatoes, a soft spicy Japanese curry bun or a moist, chewy slab of sourdough spilling with filling” (the Age, again).
Project Brief Brioche by Philip.Countless awards. Best bakery in Melbourne. Best sourdough in Melbourne. Head baker of the world renown Paul Bocuse bakery. French trained in Tokyo. The Prada of Pastry.
No pressure, then. Our client, Brioche by Philip, wanted to build their new flagship store in the new, award-winning Eastland development designed by the Buchan Group and Seventh Wave. They had acquired a prime, outward-facing, corner location within the development and their brief to us was to craft a space that reflected their status as the best French bakery and coffee house in Melbourne.
The site itself was a double-heighted space that was required to house a serving and display counter, an open-plan indoor seating area for customers, and an outdoor seating plaza that wrapped around the corner block.
Project Innovation/Need The new Eastland development itself is an architecturally innovative project aimed at economically and culturally rejuvenating a long dormant corridor of outer-Eastern Melbourne. According to the principal architect of the development, Eastland is “not just a retail centre, but an entertainment and leisure focal point for the residents of Ringwood [that] offers a curated fusion of food, fashion and lifestyle brands and introduces a seamless integration of art, culture, learning and events.”
Eastland’s design also celebrates its proximity to the Yarra Ranges through “the use of high quality tactile finishes, natural stone, patterned detailing and soft lighting to reflect the natural beauty of the surrounding region.”
As such, our design, being in a prominent location within the project, aims to complement the meta-conceptual framework of the Eastland project by mirroring its material choices and design philosophy. We designed a warm space wrapped in plywood paired with natural tan leather, accentuated by natural tiles and black steel frames. We exploited the corner location, double-heighted space and abundant natural light by creating a bold sculptural element that folds from the wall to ceiling. The result is a cathedral-like space that cocoons the customers within, and continues the theme of design innovation and sophistication that the Eastland project aims to introduce to Ringwood and surrounding areas.
Design Challenge The project brought with it three key design challenges: working with an iconic brand, the dimensions of the site, and the corner location. Designing the flagship store of an iconic brand inherently carries with it a heavy architectural burden. There is an inherent critical tension between maintaining an established brand’s heritage and identity while at the same time introducing a contemporary design approach to inject freshness and attract a younger, newer audience.
The site itself has very particular, unique dimensions. It has a relatively small footprint but a very high ceiling, creating a tall, narrow space. The wrong material choices and insufficient exposure to natural light can lead to the space feeling like the bottom of a dark elevator shaft. As such, lightness of material and visuals were a key priority in our design response.
A corner is a unique and interesting condition in architecture, as surfaces simultaneously converge physically and diverge visually. This creates opportunities for various design treatments, including wrapping, transparency and the like. Poorly designed corners close off the multi-directional potential of the space by wasting its multiple frontages, which we could not afford to do as the project brief included a large outdoor seating area that wraps around the store.
Sustainability Our holistic approach to sustainability in this project included paying close attention to material quality and toxicity, as well as thermal efficiency. Timber used in cladding and exposed structural elements were a key component of the design, and for these we used top grade timber (Grade A hoop pine) and a non-toxic water-based clear coat to finish the surface of the timber.
Choosing high-quality natural building materials with low toxicity minimises the impact of these materials on the environment both in manufacture prior to construction as well as when they are discarded or recycled at the end of the natural lifespan of the building.
Quality of finishes is not usually criteria one associates with sustainability, but a high-quality product is likely to require a lot less repair and replacement, which reduces the lifetime environmental footprint of the project. High-quality products sourced from reputable suppliers are also more likely to be manufactured sustainably and ethically, as opposed to cheaply-manufactured products that cut corners by exploiting their workers and the environment in order to keep their costs artificially low.
