A restaurant interior with meaning, 6HEAD Perth is the second of its kind in the 6HEAD group, with the first based in Sydney. Both have completely unique visual expressions, created by the team at COOOP.
As a premier steakhouse situated on the ground floor of the Chevron Tower, 6HEAD Perth expresses the local area and history of the first fleet through art printed on the curtain design that wraps the room, and in the sculptural cow heads that bookend the total space.
The Design Brief – Restaurant Interior
The restaurant interior brief called for a design that would appeal to the wider market, but more specifically draw the correct profile of client that would experience the totality of this space as good value, and ultimately generate long-term success.
Key Project Details
At the heart of the design is an oversized printed curtain that theatrically frames the kitchen as a live performance and gives new meaning to the phrase, ‘restaurant as theatre.’ The artwork printed on it features the telling of two distinct stories.
The first story depicts the dawn of Australia’s world class pastoral and cattle industries with the arrival of six head of Black Cape Cattle, from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The story goes that the cattle managed to ‘escape’ during a lunch break when they were not attended to. Search parties were sent out but to no avail.
However, eight years later and over 80 miles inland, they were rediscovered with over 100 of their descendants in an area named The Pastures. This event is said to have helped save the colony from starvation and remains a significant part of Australia’s cultural heritage today.
The second story depicts Dutch explorer Willem De Vlamingh who discovered Perth while sailing up the Swan River. To reflect the dreaming stories central to Aboriginal culture, the curtain was designed in a dreamscape featuring many intertwining visuals. Many of these are upside down, adding a touch of imagination and wonder to the restaurant.
Materialised Products
A key element of the restaurant interior is the artwork developed by COOOP. and Jana + Koos with our in-house design team. Printed on luxurious Palermo base cloth, our expert print team carefully managed the double-sided printing process required for this installation. When we say expert, it truly is a work of art to make a project like this ‘materialise’… 38 panels with double-sided panel match printing was a challenge!
Much brainstorming was required within our teams to bring the designer’s vision to life for this project. We had to consider panel matching of the face and back sides, along with shrinkage that occurs due to the extreme heat of sublimation and the careful selection of the roll sizes to minimise fabric wastage.
The Process
“We started by testing three continuous panels,” explains Kristine McIlveen, Head of Customer Service & Production. “Firstly, measuring the fabric before sublimation, then again after sublimation of the face side only. This gave us an approximation of shrinkage we should expect. From here we could estimate the bleed required for the back side panels to match as close as possible to the face panels. We also evaluated the shrinkage would be too great to sublimate more than four panels at a time, so to control the shrinkage, roll metreage was cut before sublimation.”
“It was great the see the collaboration between our textile designers, digital printers, sublimators and cutters to produce a very successful end product for our client,” says Kris.
The Result
Apart from a very visually arresting space, the restaurant interior has also managed to gain a loyal following with locals. The brand is now officially the most exclusive restaurant in the greater Perth area.
The Team & Credits
Design: COOOP PTY Ltd.
Client: Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group
Build: Mettris
Mural artwork: Jana + Koos
Curtain manufacture: Marlow & Finch
Materialised Team: Sydney
