A café playing tricks on the eye
Amid the thicket of bad architecture that is the condemned Royal Adelaide Hospital site, a clever café stands out.
Zouki Café, by Matthews Architects, plays tricks on the eye. It also references the dynamics of the site and Frome Road’s oft-overlooked elegant plane tree boulevard – unlike so many of the RAH’s buildings, which seem ignorant of their neighbours.
Matthews Architects was given a largely blank slate on which to create the café building, because no tenant had been selected at the time SA Pathology was handing out the design tender.
The firm responded with a space that made a statement, but without putting too many limits on the creativity of the eventual tenants.
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“As it does with all projects, the site had a significant influence on the outcome,” Matthews Architects director Gerald Matthews tells InDaily.
“[This was] partly in terms of constraints – existing buildings, egress paths, heritage structures, tree positions, poor soil conditions and so on – but also in terms of opportunities, such as the dappled light that filters through the trees and the prevalent colour and texture of brickwork background.
“The first key choice was to have the materials and form of the café counterpoint the red-brick solidity, mass and order of the existing surrounding buildings.
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“The next choice was to reference the shapes and patterns of the iconic plane trees that line both sides of Frome Road.”
The northern side of the site, which gets most of the day’s sunlight, was selected as the outdoor courtyard.
Site-lines were very important. Matthews’ metal lattice (the director calls it “slightly mechanical-looking tree-form columns”) enables views from the courtyard right through to the street – an architectural reference to the dappled nature of the plane trees.
“The designers wanted to create a sculptural screen element that stood off from the glass wall of the building and contrasted with the ordered brick pillars of the front fence, while at the same time referencing the café structure and the forms of the interwoven branches of the street trees.”
If you look at the café side-on, you’ll notice its roof is tilted at an odd angle, like a cocked hat – a small optical trick the firm decided to play on Frome Road’s pedestrians.
The new café’s form essentially follows the lay of the land. Frome Road slopes down to the north and the form of the building, when seen from the point of view of a pedestrian passing by, accents this slope with a subtle play on perspective.
“Approaching from the south, the slope appears diminished; approaching from the north, the slope seems enhanced,” Matthews says.
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