Studio gram received quite the challenge when tasked with designing the interiors for the new Coopers Visitor Centre: Delivering a world-class visitor centre for Australia’s largest brewery, aligned to its brand but looking nothing like a pub or a brewery, while still offering an authentic beer cellar door experience.

Armed with Studio Nine’s stunning curved external facade design for the two-storey development, Graham Charbonneau, director at studio gram, set about creatively reimagining the typical brewery experience and showing why Coopers is different. Having worked with Coopers for over 11 years, Graham loved being able to deliver a story through their lens.

“It was so nice and enjoyable to have the opportunity to work on a Cooper's project that’s important to them as a family-owned company with long ties to South Australia. It was an interesting and brave way for a client to approach a project to say, ‘we produce beer, however, we don't want to sell our beer the same way everyone else does. We really don't want this to be a pub or a brewery, when ultimately it is’. So, it was a great opportunity to look at this project through a different lens.”

To reimagine the brewery experience, studio gram approached this challenge much like an Apple store. Breaking down the hospitality/retail experience and playing with the idea of reducing the operational side. A significant focus was placed on working and surface height to deliver simple, clean lines and minimal interiors.

The palette is honest and subdued. True to studio gram, materials were selected to age in place.

“We are drawn to materials that evolve over time, rather than those that look untouched decades later. We believe in surfaces that tell a story, ones that age gracefully, bearing the marks of life. An example we like to use is that of a well-worn farm table, with its fork marks and the carvings of generations, it isn’t just furniture, it’s a record of the lives lived around it,” explains Graham.

The pared-back palette features a few variations of spotted gum, including perforated panels, veneer and solid elements, as well as stainless steel, concrete, hints of leather, Corten steel and Robertson’s Building Products’ Ash Grey brick tiles.

The Ash Grey brick tiles are used on the floor as a circulation device following the arc of the building. Commencing at the link bridge (which connects the old building, its administration offices and brewery to the Visitor Centre via an interactive history display), the brick tiles continue around the entire arc of the building and lead out to the external undercover spaces.

Using the Ash Grey brick tiles on this external arc against concrete on all the internal hospitality areas creates a clear, yet subtle visual separation between movement and non-movement spaces.

“We liked that the Ash Grey tiles had a similar quality to the concrete, but in breaking down that unit size and using patterns, we were able to create a visual separation without it becoming a highlight. So, it's not like we had a timber floor, then a concrete floor that were starkly different. We could pick up on the subtle variation between two floor finishes through the patterning of the brick tile rather than a colour or material change,” recalls Graham.

Creative touches and subtle references make this interior design a standout.

By playing with the patterning of the Ash Grey brick tiles, visitors are subtly directed around the centre. While they’re laid in a stretcher bond around the arc, at every solid section of the facade the brick pattern rotates 90 degrees to highlight the structural grid. They’re also used as skirting tiles in a soldier course and laid as a circular inlay around the host station to clearly identify its location.

The striking circular staircase adds more than a creative touch; it introduces a definite ‘wow’ factor to the visitor entry on the ground floor. This remarkable engineering feat required an extraordinary amount of behind-the-scenes coordination and design to make it happen. More than worth the extra effort and determination by Graham and his team.

Finally, the central, circular tasting room with its teardrop-shaped uncoloured glass and lighting creates a beautiful amber glow, much like beer in a glass. Though you can see activity within it, you can’t see visitors’ faces, cultivating a sense of curiosity and intrigue.

By more than delivering on Coopers’ brief, the Visitor Centre will stand alone in studio gram’s portfolio as an outstanding non-hospitality hospitality venue. In fact, feedback from Coopers’ industry peers has been extraordinary, indicating studio gram has set an exceptionally high benchmark that others in the Australian brewing industry will no doubt seek to follow.

Project details

Project: Coopers Visitor Centre

Architect: Studio Nine

Builder: Built

Interior Design: studio gram

Tiler: Sinabro Tiling

Product: Ash Grey Brick Tiles

Photography: Timothy Kaye

Architecture & Design Team

Robertson's Building Products

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