Coogee Common

Category: Hospitality

Location: Coogee, WA

Status: Completed March 2020.

Project Team:

Michael Patroni

Dimmity Walker

Tobias Busch

Landscape:

Seed Design Studio

Photography:

spaceagency

Project description:

Adaptive re-use of a heritage listed limestone building, formerly Coogee Hotel, as a ‘garden-to-plate’ restaurant and hospitality venue. The old limestone building has been restored with minor alterations and extended to accommodate a new kitchen, amenities and indoor /outdoor dining rooms that overlook the extensive vegetable gardens. The ensemble of old and new built form has an organic farmhouse quality that acknowledges the different layers of use over time, and combines the whole into a current day relaxed homestead, where many different spaces make for a variety of experiences.

The material pallet is focused on raw, organic materials that will improve with age; existing limestone, new and recycled timber, rammed concrete and terracotta. Salvaged elements, such as the original windows that were removed from the rear walls for the extension, have been retained and used to frame the kitchen pass.

The garden produce is the star of the show and is foregrounded in the farm produce shop, fermenting rooms, open kitchen, the garden tours and group cooking classes that take place in the ‘old kitchen’. The garden to plate philosophy is extended to all outsourced deliveries which are local, organic and the kitchen has no single use plastic policy.

Extensive productive gardens and bee hives, surround the restaurant rand are reminiscent of the market gardens that were once prolific in the area.