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Picnic Food Park

Merit of F&B Category | Singapore | BCI Asia Interior Design Awards 2018

Picnic Food Park is a 10,000-square-foot is a communal dining space that combines the buzz and energy of a food truck park with an immersive outdoor experience.

The designers sought to create a vibrant new identity for the food park—an indoor park restaurant with self-automated ordering and payment kiosks. They worked with an ambience expert and landscape consultant to create a space that could transform its indoor environment from day to night, and from summer to winter.

SPATIAL DESIGN
Picnic Food Park consists of three seating zones and one food street with a park map on the left of the entrance to help customers to navigate the restaurant.

Each of the three seating zones—Flower Garden, Picnic Stage Lawn and Beer Garden—features distinct park-inspired finishes such as pebble-wash flooring, recycled timber benches and concrete bar counters. Inspired by botanical conservatories, fresh flowers are grown in pots beneath glass top tables, while hanging ferns and ivy graze the Flower Garden above. In the Picnic Stage Lawn, rolling lawns under tree canopies with a music stage forms the heart of Picnic. Beer Garden lies on the edge of park and the Food Street, providing a cosy setting for drinks among concrete pavements, aged brick walls, reclaimed solid timber and rusted steel-leg tables lined with hanging lights.

The central roundabout serves desserts in the curved glass dessert chiller display. Continuing down the sinuous pebble-wash path, made up of a mix of pink and teal stone aggregates, one arrives at the Food Street where customised trucks serving a variety of cuisines are parked. A large back kitchen is used to prepare most of the ingredients, which are then distributed to the individual food trucks. The Bar, next to the Beer Garden, serves coffee by day and cocktails by night.

Movement within the restaurant is encouraged. Different floor finishes help customers orientate themselves between the different zones.

COMFORT
To enhance the comfort of the restaurant, a landscaped environment was created within the low-ceilinged space to provide interior lighting that would feel natural and warm, as well as enhancing the appearance of the food served. The original deep floor plan had only windows along one short side that limited the influx of natural light in the large restaurant space.

The design team collaborated with lighting specialists to fill the space with natural lighting that could be flexibly calibrated. They installed specialised lighting, consisting of diffused LED panels that could be configured to display moving images (of clouds, leaves and traffic), that was applied onto phone booths and doors. These moving images were projected onto these panels to simulate the outdoor environment without causing glare to customers.

PARK-INSPIRED FINISHES FOR EACH ZONE
Material palettes were carefully selected for each seating zone, inspired by the various spaces found within parks. Raw steel frames and wired glass form a monochrome backdrop for the floral accents in the Flower Garden, reminiscent of botanical conservatories. Timber frames and expanded steel mesh form the backing for the lush tree canopies in the Picnic Stage Lawn. The furniture selected for the Picnic Stage Lawn consists of natural pine wood with legs spray-painted in pink and teal. For the Beer Garden, recycled solid wood from a colonial bungalow, burnt umber oxidised steel and concrete tops give an urban street edge.

TREE MODULES
The trees were constructed out of plywood fin modules, with steel mesh in between that could be quickly assembled on-site. They serve several purposes: conceal electrical wiring for lighting and powerpoints within the base of the fins; conceal large columns within the space; and allow lush planting to be suspended from the steel mesh above.

PROJECT DATA
Project Name: Picnic Food Park
Location: 435 Orchard Road, #03-15 Wisma Atria, Singapore 238877
Completion Date: November 2016
Gross Floor Area: 10,000 square feet
Owner: Omakase Group
Landscape Architects: Harijanto Setiawan; Boenga
Interior Design Firm: Quarters Studio Pte Ltd
Principal Designers: Felicia Toh; Kenneth Koh
Lighting Consultant: Philips Electronics Singapore
Interior Fit-Out Contractor: Quan Mei Design & Construction
Images: Todd Beltz; Felicia Toh