Forty Licks is a subterranean Vietnamese restaurant in the heart of Sydney City with a unique design and application of materials. The design applies a prosthetic approach to historic buildings that enables radical transformation while preserving heritage fabric. The brief was to design a unique architectural fitout that treated the heritage fabric of the existing building in the lightest possible way.
We designed a prosthetic framework of welded steel mesh with custom clamps that allow the installations removal from the building at any time without any structural damage.
One of the great challenges was to satisfy the number of patrons required as part of the brief. We utilised all areas of the site, resulting in a tiered platform seating arrangement, each connected through the fine interweaving of the rattan installation.
