York Street Mechanics

Taking the idea of ‘mixed use’ to new extremes, this bar and restaurant was also a fully functioning custom motorcycle workshop. The design concept blended comfort and functionality with the idea that a little roughness is a good thing – given that this establishment had to wear a few more knocks than most.

Under the vast ceiling of rough-sawn timber, moments of softness and colour were were introduced through striped banquette seating and a Boys’ Own-style mural – of a hand-painted bell diver, octopi and fish. The leather banquettes were covered with surprisingly thick leather (similar in weight to a builder’s tool belt), and other atypical moments included egg-shell-blue exposed structural steelwork, and bathroom floors diligently ground back to expose the concrete aggregate and finished with a gold-tinted sealant. In the private dining room, fabric sourced from Paris depicts an adventurer’s map of Africa. Applied to the walls, it renders them soft to the touch.

Photography by Sam Hartnett

2013 NZIA Local Architecture Award - Winner, Hospitality category
2013 Best Awards - Finalist, Spatial Hospitality category