The Hub – Lakeside North Harbour, Portsmouth

The brief was to re-purpose and refurbish the ground floor area within Building 1000, which was previously known as the ‘Atrium Café’. The outdated café had enormous scope, but was not fulfilling its full potential.

Using our client’s brand values of ‘Environment, Health & Wellbeing and Community’ as the underpinning of our design; the proposal incorporated all new seating, flooring and redecoration, as well as utilising existing equipment to help form an inviting and uplifting space.

Our main focus was on helping to zone the dining room, to allow the seating area to be used as a more multi-functional space. Communal dining zones were created using screening bookcases with extra large tables, and a variety of loose dining stools. This helped to form a ‘spill out’ space from the adjacent meeting room; allowing for a sense of community and collaborative working, along with new USB points allowing for a real work/eat space.

Booth seating, with soft luxurious fabrics helped to soften the mood, and create more intimate and quiet dining spaces. This along with gentle pendant lighting created the feel of a comfortable and relaxing high street ‘coffee bar’ environment.

The seating was designed and manufactured by D3 Design, with the focus on the user being paramount. It allowed for a variety of activities to take place all within the same space, as well as creating a fresh and uplifting atmosphere.

The brief required a sense of ‘wellbeing’ within the new cafe, so along with the client’s brand colours of teal, white and grey, we introduced soft greens, timber and lots of planting to help reflect the natural and fresh connotations of this, as well as softening the room.

With light washed oak, herringbone timber wallpaper and brick slips, the room has interest and a gentle rhythm to the eye. This helps to form a space which has quiet zones, communal working areas, formal dining and soft seating.

The project was completed over a 4 week time frame, D3 Design provided all working drawings, project managed the build, and completed on time and within budget.