Hecker Guthrie has carried out the interior design of The StandardX hotel, conducting extensive research into Fitzroy’s long-storied history to conceptualise a design narrative that balances industry with craft, and domesticity with moments of hotel glamour.
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“Fitzroy was a real working-class neighbourhood back in the day,” says Josh Watt, associate at Hecker Guthrie. “There was lots of industry, such as brickworks and the steel works; there was this real production happening here. And then fast forward to the current scene, there’s this strong hospitality scene that Fitzroy has, and also that layer of arts and crafts,” he says.
“We looked to the historic production and current craft to underpin the narrative and storytelling. That was our starting point,” says Josh, who built a conceptual narrative that caught the attention of The StandardX. He continued to work with The StandardX, weaving the hotel’s “cheeky, urban sensibility” into the design.
This cultural-contextual fusion is clearly present in the hotel’s ground plane – an open-plan layout that brings together hotel check-in, a lounge, restaurant, bar and cocktail lounge. Hecker Guthrie approached the design with a focus on calm and cohesion, shaping the environment to support the layered rhythms of waiting, eating, drinking, and working.
The tactile and handmade dwells in every element of the fit-out where Hecker Guthrie has used Artedomus’ Japanese-designed INAX tiles to blend craft into the story of the hotel and the visitor journey.
Visible within every tile is its artisanal fabrication and these can be seen around the bar, clad in deep red-toned Arute Jiki Border tiles, and featured as centrepieces on many of the tables and waiter’s stations. Here, Hecker Guthrie has designed a series of steel trays to frame the tiles, which elevate and break up the shared surface of huge Oak timber tables. “There is a real calmness and craft to the Artedomus tiles that isn’t overwhelming,” reflects Josh.
The hotel also sports a rooftop bar and restaurant – an oasis of greenery and sky punctuated by rusty red Corten steel furnishings and the soft, playful touch of fringed umbrellas and seat cushions. For the rooftop bar Hecker Guthrie has designed a custom mosaic feature, inlaid into the table tops and water station around the kitchen. The gridded design of the mosaic, abstracted from an aerial photograph of Fitzroy, is expressed through a tessellation of INAX Biyusai tiles. As Josh says: “There’s a story and narrative in almost every surface.”
Explore more about this project over on SURFACE Edition.