Te Korōria
Our clients are a vibrant church community (St Mary’s, Karori Anglican) with a strong leadership team and a desire to engage in their local community.
Our brief was to design the interiors of their planned community buildings incorporating a cafe, soft play area for children, staff offices, community rooms, an after school care centre and rooms expected to be rented to counsellors and physiotherapists.
The church had already approved architects' plans and engaged building contractors. They had also gone through a branding exercise for each of the spaces and so we had clear parameters to work with. They also had a band of willing volunteers to help with cleaning, painting, constructing furniture and repurposing existing items.
Our Vision for the cafe
We sought to reference the character and history of the church and reflect this into this completely new building.
We used the colours of soft blue (traditionally used in reference to St Mary), warm white (already the colour of the exterior of the church) and dark wood to bring in these references.
The branding exercise had chosen orange and brown for Te Kororia. The cladding on the exterior was brown, and so we added pops of orange colour to the space.
We used black as an anchor point, and sought to add circular elements to match the details specified by the architects.
How we implemented the vision
The architect's specifications called for acoustic tiles to be used on the walls to help dampen noise in this large space. We selected these in a soft blue colour, and painted the rest of the walls and ceilings in a soft white.
We designed a bar counter for the cafe using repurposed pews (some years previously the pews had been removed from the church to allow for earthquake strengthening requirements). We designed a coffee bar station from the pews to also be used in this space. In the adjacent seating area we also designed and incorporated a long bench table to encourage people to linger and work from this space whilst enjoying coffee and cake. We collaborated with Fox and Table (local furniture manufacturers specialising in working with reclaimed wood) to bring these designs to life.
An old bishop’s chair was repurposed into a drink station, and a short pew was refinished to use as the seating option outside the soft play area. We sourced a shoe storage cabinet in orange for this space.
Old hymn boards were refinished as the drinks menu.
Relaxed seating areas are dotted through the cafe space with the upholstery in various shades of orange. We used a variety of textures and patterns in the upholstery on the chairs and sofa and complemented these with a long banquette seat upholstered in soft blue. (Which we constructed together with our fabulous husbands!).
All chairs and table bases and the outdoor tables are black. The outdoor chairs are orange.
The Result
A warm, attractive space that references the church and is well loved by the community.