HAYAMA AUCKLAND DOMESTIC AIRPORT
hospitality
Our clients brief was to refurbish the Hayama’s existing front-of- house and shopfront and to bring it in-line with their new brand identity making it more visible and exciting. We needed to present a distinctive look that reflected Japanese cuisine but with a modern twist in order to offer a distinct point of difference from the adjacent fast food offers.
We redesigned the service counter, moving it further back from the lease line and included two central on-bench sushi display. This is mainly for take-out consumption, however, in addition, we provided 5x fixed seats for customers to enjoy the fresh products at the counter which also activates this area making it more visible. Existing cladding to the front-of-house columns and the bulk-head were also replaced with an updated design approach to compliment our client’s latest brand identity (also developed by us). We developed the “Cherry Tree: graphic from some stock images as a prompt to the Japanese cuisine. We overlaid and illuminated a bulkhead over the counter top to make our corner site more visible and to light the working surface below.
As we had no access to the site for installing any steel beams and were not permitted to suspend the bulkhead from the ceiling, this had to be constructed in a number of timber sections and supported with posts from below. Light-boxes were also prefabricated offsite and attached to concealed timber columns. Working hours and noise are very severely restricted at the airport so most of the renovation was pre-fabricated off-site. We believe that the result achieves a distinctive take on the traditional sushi restaurant which reflects the simple and natural nature of the food offered. It provides a real alternative to other fast food outlets as is now highly visible. The project came in on time and on budget.