Hospitality Design - December 2011 - 61

interview: avroko
By Stacy Shoemaker Rauen

perspectives

collective soul
If you have dined in an AvroKO-designed space, you would know it. Partners Greg Bradshaw, Adam Farmerie, William Harris, and Kristina O’Neal have a knack for crafting eclectic, detailed spaces, that new or old, have a soul. Each space tells a deﬁnite story. And even though historical research has always been part of their process, they are ﬁnding themselves taking that idea one step further, tackling what they dub “real revivals”—the chance to breathe new life in existing or forgotten brands. From designing the ﬁrst store for a 150-year-old

Above, from left: The AvroKO principals: Greg Bradshaw, Adam Farmerie, Kristina O’Neal, and William Harris. Left: A fireplace warms one of the dining rooms at Saxon+Parole (photo by Daniel Krieger).

shoe company, to resurrecting a whiskey from the 1800s and basing one of their self-propelled restaurants around it, to renovating a oncestaple bar and restaurant in California’s wine country, the foursome is redeﬁning authenticity. HD: Talk to us about this trend of real revivals. KO: The ﬁrm in general over the years has done historical narrative as part of the design process, but recently we’ve been a lot more interested in looking at and working through real brands that were established one hundred ﬁfty or sixty years ago. It’s a little bit different of a process, because you’re looking at a lot of facts, and you’re also living through the brand, instead of trying to invent it. It’s a fascinating process, and it’s actually just made the work more in-depth. HD: And do you think these revivals happened by coincidence? AF: Our design process has been historically grounded for so long. For us it’s probably a natural evolution of the idea of searching for authenticity. And whereas we were doing a mash-up of historical ideas and creating something new out of them before, there is part of us right now that’s enjoying exploring a different side of authenticity, where we are focused on taking a singular thing and blowing that up, and bringing that back in a modern way that’s still meaningful. Not just replicating it, but really honing in on something that’s singular.

Maybe that is partially a sign of the times. I was at Red Rooster with Marcus Samuelsson. Red Rooster was a restaurant that existed in Harlem in the twenties and thirties. He was talking of this notion of tapping into the spirit of Harlem from that period of time, and really trying to re-channel that spirit. I was telling him a little bit about Fagiani’s restaurant, which is the project we’re going to be channeling and re-presenting in Napa next year, and they’re very similar. Maybe it’s a common thread between people who are a little bit likeminded who want to ﬁnd that authenticity and tap into it in a more meaningful way. HD: Do you want to dive into Fagiani’s—a restaurant you are designing and will operate under your hospitality group umbrella? AF: We got introduced to this building and this story kind of randomly. We were all going to be in California, out in Napa at the same time, and we got a call suggesting that we come look at this building. We went into this building, which was built in 1909, and it just felt amazing. There was something about it. There was never a point in our discussion where we thought, ‘Oh, well, let’s open and upgrade a restaurant in Napa. That will be really great.’ It was one of these things where we met the building, and then in speaking with the guy who owned the building and learning the history of Fagiani’s and what it meant to Napa, we fell in love with it.

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December 2011

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - December 2011