WHITE HORSE
Builder: Something Constructions
Photography: Name Here
The White Horse, the landmark pub on Crown Street now an all-new, 170-capacity venue. A buzzy ground-floor restaurant and an upstairs public bar and garden terrace, and intimate function rooms. The design approach is all about casual luxury, living artwork where spaces are not a gallery just to hold art; every detail is part of the living whole.
The White Horse is an art story. We mapped the venue as a living, three-dimensional artwork, with the ground floor dining room evoking the area’s pre-colonial past, the first-floor public bar bringing the present to life in flashes of colour and movement, and the intimate function space becoming a realm where the future is drawn with objects that blur the lines between function and form.
The minimalist yet casually luxurious residential interiors of Belgian artist and designer Axel Vervoordt were heavily discussed as part of the briefing process with the clients and inspired us to transfer his residential attitude and aesthetic into a new kind of public hard working functional hospitality space filled with art. Something we all had not yet seen.
We spoke a lot with the clients about the unpretentious beauty of Shaker furniture and quality touch points. Those conversations became the considered details throughout, so you feel like you are walking into an idealised living room – art is the hero but the spaces are relaxed comfortable not overly decorated, not over stated.
The tactility and rawness of the long and deep ground-floor dining room is inspired by the sand hill that once stood nearby, as well as the sandstone plateau overlaid with hard blue clay that formed what is now Crown Street before European settlement.
Ascend the stairs to the public bar, where the immediacy and indefinability of the present moment is captured in flashes of colour, sound and movement. Inspired by the spontaneity of the Action Painting works of Abstract Expressionist Movement, unexpected, blocked colours are found throughout the interior space and outdoor terrace.
The intimate function space, on the same level, shifts guests from the public into the semi-private. The room plays with unexpected furniture pairings and displays small scale abstract paintings. Here, the lines between art and function are blurred, with traditions honoured yet toyed with.
There is an easiness to the spaces but on closer inspection the details and quality of finishes and furniture add the quiet luxury. At a human level what you touch, see and taste super high quality to elevate the guest experience. Everything considered to delight the guests.
A celebration of art and light. A balanced duality where space that can hold the dualism of our design brief: the luxury with the ease; the minimalism with the expressive detailing; the meaningful with the frivolous (the all-important fun).
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