Image Credit : All photography by Trevor Mein.
Project Overview
Slow food, swift service, stylish design: Charlie & Co is the ultimate burger experience. We were invited to design the Sydney-born burger bar's first Melbourne offering. Located at the Emporium, this site is the first iteration of the brand outside of its original inception at the Westfield in Sydney’s CBD.
The brand pays homage to the legendary “Hamburger CharIie” of Seymour, Wisconsin, one of the genuine trailblazers of the hamburger. Just as the original maestro was committed to handcrafting premium burgers from the freshest produce, the design too is based on high quality classics that stand out.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Landini Associates is a multi-disciplinary retail design and brand consultancy consisting of strategic planners, architects and interior, graphic and product designers. We produce world class, simple yet effective work that lasts. We are interested in the classic over the fashionable and many of our projects have a longevity that exceeds the market norm. Strategically driven but creatively led, we are equally at ease inventing new brands as we are evolving and redefining existing ones. We bring about a fusion of multiple disciplines resulting in an end product with a singular vision. This results in the best possible outcome for both our clients and their customers. Landini Associates is based in Sydney and is currently working in North America and Canada, the UAE, the UK, Asia and Australia.
Project Brief
The brief was to introduce the Sydney brand to Melbourne with a design that simultaneously embraced its heritage and its new home and stood out amongst the many offerings of the food court.
Project Innovation/Need
The site we were given was intended to be a single story kiosk however, given the scale of the Emporium food court, we took the opportunity to turn it into a freestanding building in its own right. This serves a triple effect: it ensures that Charlie & Co stands out amongst the multiple food offerings and simultaneously shadows queuing customers from the heat of the Emporium’s triple height windows. It also has a functional purpose, creating a clear queuing area that wraps around the curve of the stand-alone building. With windows on either side of the kiosk, customers are granted a peek into the kitchens and the entertainment and theatre of food production whilst they wait to order. Taking inspiration from Charlie’s mission, we have used this simple concept paired with honest and raw materials to create something special.
Design Challenge
One of the main design challenges was to ensure that Charlie held its own within a food court, amongst multiple strong food offerings. We chose to do this by turning the space into a stand-alone building so that it is unique amongst the other kiosks. We embraced stylish simplicity through the use of raw, honest materials that echo the brands manifesto to sell fresh handcrafted burgers made from premium fresh ingredients.
Another challenge was to establish a Sydney centric-brand in the food capital of Australia; to make it appropriate to a Melbourne audience yet also to retain its essence. To embrace Charlie’s new found home, we geared the design to be more urban than its Sydney predecessor. This was achieved by using luxe industrial finishes including blackened steel, exposed brick, black tiles, industrial windows, textured concrete and recycled timber – all high quality, classic materials, just like the ingredients of Charlie’s burgers. And if the lunchtime stampede and lengthy queues are anything to go by, Melbournians too have embraced Charlie like one of their own.
Sustainability
Taking inspiration from Charlie’s mission, we have used recycled bricks and timber together with classic, honest and raw materials that will last. It is not unusual for our designs to live up to and beyond 20 years old, an aspect we achieve by employing simple and classic materials that do not date but instead age with grace and style. We never design to trends, instead we design to create something special that will last. This is a studio philosophy that allows for sustainable design, and one that we applied when designing Charlie & Co.
Interior Design - Hospitality
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes, aesthetic presentation and functionality. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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