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The iconic Bourbon Hotel has thrown open its doors in Sydney’s Kings Cross after a super slick re-design to its ground floor and basement. Our Sydney team mixed it with ex DJ-come-uber-designer Paul Kelly to realise this strikingly handsome New York style Grillhouse and Lounge Bar. But it’s the loads fresh air, owing to our sophisticated mechanical solution, that will keep patrons partying all night long. And there is no shortage of moody spaces courtesy of our intimately coordinated electrical package. And with food critic Terry Durack giving the kitchen 15/20, we are pleased to note that our integration of services into the kitchen is sizzling!

Too much detail is never enough when striving to create a truly seamless and slick licensed entertainment venue that will ultimately rarely close. The Bourbon Hotel, refurbished in two stages, reopened its ground and basement levels after a radical transformation. To make way for the staged design, we engaged in a process of anticipating the functional needs of the entire venue ahead of the completion of the concept design. We posed questions like: On a hot summer’s afternoon, how many people are likely to be in the space? Will they be eating a full meal, or just snacks? Will breakfast, lunch and dinner be served continuously? Will there be live music and a sound stage or just a DJ? How many people will occupy the space? Will they be dancing and until what time of the day? Our team drew on their personal knowledge of partying in Kings Cross to tackle these questions. And armed with many answers, and endless variables, we designed a full package of building services, which we delivered through a staged build.

The second major challenge was to provide 100% outside air to accommodate the potential of a full house. Medland Metropolis’ design solution incorporated a heat exchanger on the roof that preconditions the air prior to entering the VRV Air conditioning equipment for the most efficient solution. We designed this system to handle jammed to the rafters, doof doof dance conditions while still being able to throttle back to morning Bloody Marys and fried eggs. It’s a robust and efficient solution which has a finely tuned capability that will ensure that the Bourbon Hotel can meet the needs of night clubbing patrons when it expands into the upper two floors, while also servicing the lower two floors, including diners and an indoor/outdoor zone.