Hospitality
Restaurants, food courts, bars and hotels. Spaces where the fit-out has to survive constant traffic, tight servicing and a landlord's programme, and still feel like somewhere a person chose to eat. A good deal of this work sits inside Auckland Airport, landside and airside.
What we design
Restaurants and food courts. From a kiosk in a terminal to a full restaurant fit-out, including kitchen planning, servicing and the compliance that comes with food premises.
Bars and hotels. Guest-facing interiors where the bar, the lobby and the rooms have to read as one place.
Airport and travel hospitality. A category with its own rules on servicing, fire, security and out-of-hours access. We have delivered in both zones at Auckland Airport.
Selected work
Silk Road, a pan-Asian restaurant in the landside food court at Auckland International, designed as a late-colonial merchant house so that one space could carry Thai, Chinese and Indonesian menus without reading as any one of them.
Popo Dumplings, airside at Auckland Airport, built around handmade dumplings made in view of the customer. Earthy tones, aged copper and antique tiles, with soft lighting and glass pendants.
Halong Bay, a Vietnamese concept in a narrow space between two neighbouring tenancies. Shared tables with planter dividers and light-box signs drawn from Vietnamese street markets, in timber, rattan and metal against a turquoise floor.
Hayama, twice. The landside outlet, squeezed into a former coffee kiosk that lacked most of the services a kitchen needs. And the airside outlet, a nighttime dining room in black-stained timber.
Hotel DeBrett, in the city.
How a hospitality project runs
Understand the offer. What is being served, to whom, at what speed, and at what margin. The kitchen drives more of the plan than the dining room does.
Concept design. The idea, tested against the tenancy, the services available and the landlord's rules.
Developed and detailed design. Documentation a fitout contractor can price and build, including kitchen, servicing, lighting and joinery.
Consent and build. Food premises and fire compliance, tender documentation, and contract administration through to opening.
Why Walker
Registered architects and interior designers in one studio, so the tenancy and the fit-out are a single conversation.
Repeated work for the same hospitality clients across multiple sites and formats, which is the only real evidence that a design performed.
More than 160 local and international design awards.
Common questions
Do you design the kitchen as well as the dining room?
Yes. Kitchen and servicing planning is part of the work, and on small tenancies it usually drives the rest of the plan.
Can you work inside an airport or a shopping centre tenancy?
Yes, including the landlord and centre approvals that come with it. Several of these projects are in the terminals at Auckland Airport.
Do you handle the fitout contractor and the build?
We document for tender, help evaluate contractors, and administer the contract through to opening.
How small is too small?
None of them have been. One of these was a kiosk site that had previously sold only coffee.
Start a conversation
Tell us what the space has to serve and how fast, and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right studio for it.