Image Credit : All photography by Trevor Mein.
Project Overview
Jones the Grocer is an iconic Australian brand that arrived on the Sydney food scene in 1996. Since then Landini Associates has helped expand and develop its offer overseas. Initially conceived as a 200 Sq M format it is now being implemented at many times that size incorporating all day dining, the theatre of open kitchens and bakeries as well as it’s legendry cheese and wine room experience. Jones seeks out specialty food and ingredients from all over the world, often from family makers of many generations, and brings these together for the foodie in us all.
To mark the next step in the Jones journey, our task was to reintroduce the brand to Melbourne by way of a flagship store in the glamorous Emporium Melbourne.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Landini Associates
Jones the Grocer
Project Brief
Jones is still a grocer but has transgressed to be a multifaceted creator of meals. It produces casual yet polished eats, from eating in or take away, a patisserie, pizzeria, cafe, licensed restaurant with open kitchen, cooking school, shop and tapas bar. Our brief was to achieve all of this diversity of service in one unified location.
Our overall ambition was to create a celebration of real people coming together to cook, eat and be social. Jones gets that and that’s what makes it special.
Project Innovation/Need
With each new Jones store, the look, feel and offer is constantly adapting and evolving. The adaptive design of the Emporium Melbourne store has introduced a pizzeria as well as a full height cheese and charcuterie wall and a larger retail area. The look and feel is more relaxed yet the diversity and quality, for which Jones in famed, remains unparalleled.
An open facade showcases the bustling interior, where floor to ceiling back-lit steel shelving displays the extensive offer of luxury as convenience. The design combines raw, industrial concrete surfaces with tactile steel, marble and leather details. A moderate height space is made to feel large and open through the use of double height product shelves, cheese and charcuterie walls, combined with double height mirrors.
Design Challenge
A key design challenge was creating a balance between the diversity of service – from restaurant to café to patisserie, cheese specialist, grocer and pizzeria – under one unified roof, as well as achieving day into evening dining in a shopping center location. We created multiple areas internally, each entertained and protected by food production activities such as the open kitchen, tapas bar and shop, to create distinction within the united whole.
At the very outset we recognized how important the lighting would be both as a foil to the center but also to create the dining experience that Jones needed to succeed throughout the day and into the evening. We determined to light the space with warmth that sits at odds with its new home. This we achieved largely by lighting the activity and product, rather than the space. This was supplemented by new low energy efficient fittings and LED’s, which both up and down-light the product and rear wall of the space.
Sustainability
Much of the lighting was repurposed from other Senselle projects and then supplemented by new low energy efficient fittings and LED’s. Additionally we use much less energy than the previous scheme by minimising the lighting and using shadow to great effect.
Throughout the interior we have used classic, honest and raw materials that will last. We never design to trends, instead we design to create something special that will last and as such it is not unusual for our designs to live up to and beyond 20 years old. This is a studio philosophy that allows for sustainable design, and one that we applied when designing Jones the Grocer.
Interior Design - Retail
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes and aesthetic presentation. Consideration given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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