The Dill Pickle Club

The Dill Pickle Club mixes the delights of hi-fidelity music, sophisticated drinks and convivial company within a memorable, atmospheric space.

  • Design Response

    Located on the first floor of a 1960’s commercial building in Launceston, the Dill Pickle Club fulfills the dream of its owners to create a bar that mixes the delights of hi-fidelity music, sophisticated drinks and convivial company within a memorable, atmospheric space.
    A refurbished shell internally but tired externally, the building provided a perfectly mundane container for an interior to transport you elsewhere while surrounded by elevated views of where you are.
    Our ambition was to create something akin to the ‘floating world’ from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name – an endless, enchanting moment captured within the night-time space of the local bar as the world outside evolves.
    To explain their desired aesthetic our clients sent us screenshots of ‘The Queens Gambit’ to which we replied with ‘Deutschland ’83’. Our proposition being that eastern bloc modernism was able to add – to the elegance of mid-century design – an alluring mystery that the western version alone could not.
    Great attention was paid to a comfortable suite of sitting, standing and circulation spaces for patrons, along with a symbiotic suite of highly functional working and storage spaces for staff. Experienced at an intimate distance, the juxtaposition of colour and material evokes the warm luxury of a jazz age speakeasy or private lounge, creating an immersive and ephemeral floating world by day or by night.

  • Services Provided

    • Full Services

    Architect

    Workshop Architecture

    People

    Project Director: Simon Whibley, William Heath
    Project Team: Wanwan Darmali, James Staughton, Mijawi Mansell Whitebear
    Photographer: Matt Sansom

    Date completed

    June 2024

    Location

    Kanamaluka Country / Launceston

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