On the ground floor of the Harbour Rocks Hotel, with dining overlooking busy pedestrian street Nurses Walk in Sydney’s The Rocks, is Tayim, a new restaurant, bar and deli with design by architecture studio Welsh & Major. The exterior brick facade has been restored and updated, while the interiors are a lesson in successful adaptive reuse, pairing historic sandstone walls with minimal design insertions to create a blank canvas for complex Middle Eastern flavours.
The project was made all the more challenging by the heritage constraints to the site, which was previously the 1890s Evans’ Stores warehouse, as well as the considerable functional requirements of creating a working restaurant, bar and deli.
Key to the design solution was the combination of four warehouse bays – previously sub-divided, concealed and sub-let, with limited connections, varying levels and poor access – into a single restaurant venue. “It was about bringing together previously fragmented spaces to reveal a celebration of the original warehouse form,” says Chris Major from Welsh & Major.
The length of each warehouse bay is now emphasised with a focus on the richness of the original sandstone walls, while inserted elements in plaster and bead-blasted stainless are used to contrast with the texture of the walls. Additional design elements are fresh and simple – the bar is in bright white and tabletops in white marble, while textile and rug wall hangings in neutral tones add another layer of warmth and depth.
Outside, a new deck and canopy activate the front of the building, transforming the corner of Nurses Walk and contributing to the public domain, while at the upper level, the original arched sandstone openings are revealed and celebrated.
Sensitively considered, this is an example of adaptive reuse that celebrates the texture and beauty of the building’s original materials and complements these with understated design elements to create a harmonious whole.
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