Jury comment
Kiln takes hotel dining to new heights, literally. Perched atop the Ace Hotel in the heart of downtown Sydney, its design plugs into current conversations about sustainability, collaboration and community. Collaborations with local artisans, including Henry Wilson and Spacecraft Studio, honour the site’s history – it hosted Australia’s oldest known ceramic kilns during the 1820s. For Kiln, pigments were mixed out of waste materials recovered from the site. Despite Ace’s global presence, the restaurant’s palette of dusky pinks, greens and blues are of the Australian landscape. Locally sourced materials echo this, from leather tabletops to stone floors and raw timber furniture. The space is original and playful, its many-layered interiors inviting discovery. Further, it demonstrates a restaurant’s ability to bring several design stories into a single space. By capturing a moment in time for Australian interior design, it is just as much a restaurant for locals as for visitors, mirroring a global trend of high-quality hotel dining.
Design statement
New restaurant and bar Kiln is on the top floor of Ace Hotel Sydney, the first Southern Hemisphere launch by the Ace Hotel group. Fiona Lynch Office’s interior design embraces the uniquely Australian setting and landscape, which is reflected in the venue’s colour palette, sustainable materials, craftsmanship and collaborations with local artisans. The studio was briefed to give the rooftop venue its own identity – something distinctly different from the heritage-modern hospitality venues beneath. The result is an Australian take on the Ace Hotel’s global design aesthetic – one that reflects Australia’s culture, colours and design language. Banquette seating around the perimeters makes the most of generous windows, creating a relaxed, layered feel. Unexpected views reveal Sydney from rare angles. Holding the look together is an intriguing patchwork of Australian colours – greens, golds, blues and muted earthy hues, riffing on the local landscape – and tactile materials threaded through custom furniture, rugs, textiles, lighting, upholstery and surfaces. Natural, native materials rule, from raw wooden seating to leather-topped tables. Local collaborations include custom lighting created with Sydney designer Henry Wilson and experimental textiles conceived with Melbourne’s Spacecraft Studio. Monolithic marble, stone and metal bars and counters are inspired by seminal Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Kiln, Ace Hotel Sydney is build on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.
Project credits
Design practice Fiona Lynch Office Project team Fiona Lynch
See the full gallery of winning and commended projects on the Eat Drink Design Awards website.
The Eat Drink Design Awards are organized by Architecture Media (publisher of ArchitectureAU). The 2023 awards’ supporting partners are Roca and Latitude.
The Eat Drink Design Awards are endorsed by the Australian Institute of Architects and the Design Institute of Australia.
