Hospitality – Bronwyn Boltwood, Circa 2010

Step inside the Tesla, and step sideways in time to visit a world where steam technology is common, but so are clockwork cybernetics and aetheric transference of matter not only to other continents but other universes. Dance under the light of a forty-foot high array of plasma lamps and drink absinthe or phlogiston cocktails. Step into a steampunk world where history, technology, fantasy, adventure, and mad science mingle.

The Tesla is the fruit of my hospitality studio project, where I was asked to program, plan, and develop a five-star themed venue with restaurant, nightclub, and exhibition space, in a major city anywhere in the world but North America. The concept had to be cutting-edge, integrate modern technology throughout, and cause guests to be educated as well as entertained by their visit. And so, given license to do anything I wanted, no matter how wild so long as it was commercially plausible, I decided that I wanted to do something steampunk. I’m a life-long science fiction and fantasy fan, and even more so for alternate history, especially with fantastical elements. Steampunk hits every one of those buttons and then some, because I also love Victorian tools and Art Nouveau, and steampunk covers them too. If I was going to design a club, it was going to be one that I wanted to attend.
Continue reading →

A concept board for a bar called Lawyers N Love (not my choice of name), which includes a rendered perspective and a concept statement. I saw it as being sleek, modern and warm, despite the chrome furniture, thanks to the warm dark wood, raspberry walls, and creamy white leather with a very natural texture. I wanted the barstools to resemble marshmallows, and choose classic Le Corbusier furnishings to match them.

The perspective is based on a model I created in SketchUp (24mb). Once satisfied with the arrangement, I exported an image of a particular view. From that, I edited it in stages to first remove unnecessary lines, then create the many complex selections required, and finally coloured and lit the perspective.