Constellations Bar

Constellations Bar
© H. Miller Bro

CONSTELLATIONS BAR

H. Miller Bro

ARCHITECTS
H. Miller Bro

PROJCT YEAR
2014

CATEGORY
Restaurants & Bars

ENGINEER
Paul Clark, Materian Ltd

PHOTOGRAPHS
Courtesy Of H. Miller Bros

ENGINEER
Paul Clark, Materian Ltd.

LANDSCAPE AND PLANTING
Gemma Jerome

FURNITURE CONSTRUCTION
Mike Kerslake

ARCHITECTS IN CHARGE
Hugh Miller Furniture, Howard Miller Design Ltd.

LOCATION
Liverpool, United Kingdom

Text description provided by architect.

Constellations Bar is an outdoor venue which includes a bar, food truck, art space and community garden. Located in Liverpool’s up-and-coming creative quarter, The Baltic Triangle, the project occupies a disused industrial recycling yard.

Constellations Bar
© H. Miller Bro
Constellations Bar
© H. Miller Bro

The project was the brainchild of Becky Pope, Nick Baskerville, and Paul Seiffert, who diverse background include community events organisation, marketing and craft beer brewing.

The project was designed and made by H.Miller Bros, collaboration between brothers Hugh and Howard Miller. Hugh is a designer and furniture maker who trained in architecture before starting Hugh Miller Furniture.

Howard is an architect, previously at Hayhurst & Co in London. H.Miller Bros. was formed in order to have creative control over all aspects of a project, rekindling the Arts & Crafts ideal of gesantkunstwerk – ‘a total work of art.’

Constellations Bar
© H. Miller Bro
Constellations Bar
© H. Miller Bro

H.Miller Bros. work from their design studio and furniture making workshop in a Victorian warehouse, also in The Baltic Triangle.

H.Miller Bros. work from their design studio and furniture making workshop in a Victorian warehouse, also in The Baltic Triangle.

Approached in April 2014, the brothers were tasked with designing and making the venue to be operational by that summer. In fact, from the H.Miller Bros. Being appointment to the opening party of Constellations was a little over 3 months.

Constellations Bar
© H. Miller Bro

The design takes inspiration from the site; an enclosed brick courtyard created when the roof of a former warehouse burned down in the 1980’s. The remaining gables provide a backdrop to the design and these pitches are reflected as a motif in the profile of the canopy.

The canopy, along with all the other components, was prefabricated in the H. Miller Bros. workshop, and slotted together on site in 3 days. The waffle soffet was made from standard construction timber, planed down to remove rounded edges and grade markings.

Constellations Bar
Axonometric 2

The undulations of the soffet create a variety of atmospheric spaces – beer hall, dining room, and intimate seating area. However these spaces are unified by the regular pattern of the ceiling.

The structure is supported by a set of ten ‘quadrapods’ – doubled A-Frame supports -made from green oak. These have a duel function, as each one incorporated bench seating or a table.

Constellations Bar
Axonometric 1

These quadrapods carry the load of the canopy via glue-lam beams, which project form the roof to form a wing-shaped rainspout.

The courtyard garden is populated with green oak furniture, conceived as a set of tessellating components, and planted one-tone builders bags.

These are easily movable, allowing the space to be reconfigured to accommodate the rolling program of arts events, performance, cinema screenings and a market.