Project Title: HELM Restaurant

Firm: Stephen Blatt Architects

Submitted for Consideration in: Architecture, Interiors

Client:

Location: Portland, Maine

Project-At-a-Glance:
A 50-plus seat restaurant in the newly developing Foreside district along Portland’s eastern waterfront is inspired by the client’s passion for the Maine landscape and their vision for providing a refined dining experience.

Project Narrative:

The client asked for a space that was fine-tuned to the experience of the diner, and the kitchen and service staff alike; a space that was elemental, but sensuous; a space that echoed the beauty of the rocky Maine coast, without reverting to tired imagery and the cliché tropes of “light houses and lobster traps”.  The design realizes these poetic aspirations through its materiality and the artful crafting of the infrastructure that supports hospitality service.  With subtle references to minimalist early modern design of the 30s and 40s, the room is defined by discreet elements set in an open “raum-plan” spatial field: Bar, Host station, Oyster station, Server's station, Kitchen pass-thru…each are deployed as pieces of an integrated, functional and aesthetic composition that facilities the service and shapes the diner’s experience. A palette of grey, terrazzo-flecked concrete that evokes the granite strewn beaches of the Seacoast is accented by banquettes and paneled walls of rich natural wood grain that in turn imbues the space with the tawny hues of Maine forests.  A delicate wood-slatted ceiling provides a branch-like rhythmic overlay above the free-form plan, and acts as an acoustical baffle. The slats conceal linear HVAC registers and recessed lights, removing visual clutter and  highlighting milk-glass globes and sleek black-steel cylinder lights that drop from between the wooden boards. Glassware and bottles that catch the light are arranged around the room like museum objects in refined steel and glass vitrines.