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Foxglove: Hong Kong’s most compelling new lounge-bar, paying homage to quintessential British heritage: the finest handcrafted umbrellas and the traditional private members’club.
Access to the 4,300 sqft space –a fantasy world inspired by the globe-trotting adventures of an English gentleman and named after his love’s favourite (but potentially deadly) flower– is via a ‘secret’ door in the Fox Shop, an elegant walk-through boutique featuring classic silver handle-umbrellas immaculately presented ‘Kingsman-secret-service-style’ within bespoke-design brass edged wall cabinets.
Touch one ‘special’ meticulously carved silver handle to enter Foxglove’s exclusive inner sanctum reminiscent of all the luxury and glamour of first class airplanes, trains and vintage cars – with a distinctly contemporary and playful twist that highlights the age-old pleasure in discovering hidden elements in special places.
The unapologetically cinematic interiors draw on a moody palette of darker finishes, shadows, form and rich materials to give the space –part retreat, part escape- an aptly masculine allure. The main lounge and cocktail bar featuring an elegant silver-grey marble top counter sits at the heart of the space, hinting at their covert nature with luxurious deep ink blue leather seating for 80 guests offset by a dramatically sculptural cream lacquered ceiling that wraps around the bar.
Meanwhile, a VIP room featuring blood red sumptuous seating for 32 guests evokes the ambience of a vintage First Class train cabin with a gently arched ceiling and walls clad with umbrella stems. Custom lights reminiscent of classic car headlamps add to the cinematic experience.
To enter the VVIP room, guests place their hand on a traditional floral painting at the end of one corridor until it glows, signaling the bartender to open the door.
Inside, the classic library setting raises the bar for exclusive sanctuaries with bookshelves that wrap walls and the ceiling, enticingly comfortable leather club chairs, a warm and intimate emerald green palette and elegant marble bar counter. The sense of fantasy continues with a witty nod to ship-cabin-style washrooms accessed by a corridor where mesmerizing mirror trickery turns up the glamour dial.
Project Foxglove
Location Ice House Street, Central, Hong Kong
Interior Design NC Design & Architecture Ltd. (NCDA) N
Project Designer Nelson Chow (NCDA)
Graphic Design NC Design & Architecture Ltd (NCDA)
Photos courtesy Dennis Lo Designs
NC Design & Architecture Ltd. (NCDA)
NC Design&Architecture Ltd. (NCDA) is a Hong Kong-based architectural design firm specializing in retail, restaurant, hospitality and residential projects. It covers the full design remit encompassing interiors, bespoke furniture and innovative products, through to graphic design and the development of exclusive brand narratives. Interested in developing creative projects that reinvent the experience of space through meaningful connections. Focused on engaging through storytelling, developing new ways for people to interact with their world and each other.
Their projects exist at the intersection of art and architecture and help start creative collaborations, stimulate interesting conversations, and deliver projects with their own visual identity that tell a unique story. NCDA works at many different scales, an approach that supports provision of a complete design service from architecture and furniture to tailored details like signage and uniforms.
NCDA has also won numerous professional prizes for projects including the Old Street Kobiteh restaurant which received a 2014 Design for Asian Award (DFA); the Pak Loh Times Square restaurant which received the 2014 Asia Pacific Interior Design Award (APIDA) Bronze Award; and the Mrs Pound restaurant which was named by Time Out Magazine as ‘one of the city’s most forward thinking and, frankly, best eateries.’ The influential Openrice online forum also rated both Chateh and Sungai Wan restaurants as the ‘top two restaurants in Hong Kong’.
Nelson Chow, Principal
Raised in Canada, Nelson is a New York State licensed architect. He received his Master of Architecture from The University of Waterloo (Canada) in 2004 and, after completing a Menswear Tailoring Certificate at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City in 2005, joined the international design and concept firm AvroKO at their New York City office. With experience working on critically acclaimed projects such as Steelworks Lofts, the W hotel and Madame Geneva Bar, he relocated to Hong Kong, where he joined the award winning Edge Design Institute specializing in the design of luxury homes and yachts. Since establishing NCDA in 2012, Nelson has emerged as one of the region’s most innovative design studios with a collection of head-turning projects around the region.
by AN shopfitting magazine no.131 ©
