Soban

Sitting atop the Chatswood Westfield Shopping Centre – part of the world’s largest listed retail property group – is the Soban restaurant. With soban translating as “small table,” the massive scale of the busy complex is a potentially difficult context for the new Korean restaurant. To ease in, the main aim of designers Han Lim and Jessica Kim of Studio MKZ was to create a shopfront that instead stands in stark contrast with its neighbourhood. Drawing on their backgrounds in installation art and its relationship with interactivity and performance, the designers created a fourteen-metre-long facade made up of layer upon layer of recycled timber slats. The effect recalls the boarded-up bar of a Western movie set or, more painfully, the abandoned commercial zones of the credit crunch. The addition of translucent red glass inserts allows passers-by glimpses of the interior space. Once inside, parts of this evocative timber installation break through into tranquil inner spaces wrapped in a warm green perforated wall.