Coast Restaurant
Project Vision
How to create something quintessentially about the Sydney coast without relying on the usual clichés? Create an actual coastline suspended from the ceiling.
This dramatic overhead installation stretches the length of the restaurant and was constructed from translucent yellow acrylic, down-lit with LED lights to create a stunning lightscape. The coastline is realized as three groupings of curvilinear forms made from purpose-molded translucent yellow acrylic. The meter-high installation is an extruded expression suspended 2.5 meters above the floor. Some 60 meters of acrylic were used to make the forms.
During the day, the sunlight penetrates the acrylic to bathe the space in a golden glow. The lighting and coastal forms create greater intimacy in what was quite a large, impersonal space. The lighting feature’s visibility through the full height windows helps promote the restaurant in a busy dining and entertainment precinct.
Announcing the restaurant is a huge, yellow curve, the top half of the letter “c.” It is completed by its reflection in a shallow pool of water. Reflection is also the theme for the restaurant’s logo; it’s as if the word “coast” is disappearing over the horizon. At night, the inside of the curve is up-lit.
Project Details
The entry sign for this restaurant transported me to the beach. A cresting wave with whitecaps crashing onto the shore, stripped down to its purest form. Simple, elegant and original.
Design Team
Vince Frost (Principal in Charge), Bridget Atkinson, Anthony Donovan
Design Firm
Frost* Design
Consultants
Hassell (architecture, interior design), Art+Science (lighting), Claude Group (prototyping)
Fabricators
Elite Signs