Coney Island-themed designs for London’s Brooklyn Bowl

Barr Gazetas has designed the interiors for Brooklyn Bowl, a new entertainment venue sited in London’s O2 centre.

Exterior
Exterior

The 2,973m2 space comprises a live music arena, a bowling alley, three bars and a restaurant run by American chef Bruce Bromberg and his Blue Ribbon Restaurants.

This is the first Brooklyn Bowl to open in Europe, with the first opening in New York’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2009. A third is due to open in Las Vegas.

The look and feel of London site’s interiors are inspired by its Brooklyn origins, drawing on the fairgrounds of Coney Island in the 1930s.

Bowling area
Bowling area

Features include a 7m-high pink and blue neon sign, a recycled timber plank entrance bay, recycled tyres for the stage and a recycled corrugated iron roof with skewed triangular lighting ‘to create external focus, and internal drama’, according to Barr Gazetas.

Alistair Barr, project manager at Barr Gazetas, says, ‘When you think of bowling alleys in England they’re quite shiny, plastic places, so we did the exact opposite, with lots of solid timber and galvanised metal painted black’.

Bowling alley
Bowling alley

Barr Gazetas was appointed to the project in February last year, having worked with the O2 since 2004 on projects including designed the piazza in front of the centre.

The consultancy initially travelled to the original Brooklyn site to analyse  ‘what was good about the original, and see it in all different modes, from a quiet Monday to a packed midnight’, says Barr.

The founders of Brooklyn Bowl, Charley Ryan and Peter Shapiro, say the original venues interiors were designed in-house, as was the logo, which is carried through to the new London branch.

Bar
Bar

Barr says, ‘The main logo has been transferred but everything else is up for grabs. I took [the owners] to Wilton’s Music Hall in east London, as I think there’s a lot of crossover with that sort of look and the Coney Island idea’.

 Barr Gazetas worked with AV specialist Vanguardia on the project.

 

 

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