One in all Hong Kong’s most iconic nightclubs enters a brand new period

It took Gilbert Yeung fourteen years to search out the best designers to reimagine Dragon-i. When it opened in 2002, the nightclub grew to become an iconic reference level for Hong Kong’s nightlife, a venue that outlined an entire period. Now, with an entire redesign by London-based studio Pirajean Lees, working with Hong Kong-based studio JJA for execution, it returns as a daring assertion about the place the town’s after-dark scene is heading.

Tour Dragon-i 2.0, Hong Kong

The catalyst for its transformation was a go to to The Home of KOKO, a personal members’ dwell music membership in London that stopped Yeung in his tracks. ‘It was such a posh, unimaginable idea,’ he says. ‘It’s not simply the design: it has an actual spirit and imaginative and prescient.’ He went on the lookout for the artistic minds behind it, and located Pirajean Lees.

The studio founders, Clémence Pirajean and James Lees, start each mission with a interval of intensive analysis and narrative constructing as a way to put together a script of emotions and intentions lengthy earlier than any pictures are developed. ‘We didn’t present Gilbert a temper board,’ says Pirajean. ‘We advised him the story in regards to the character of the area, the sensation and the emotion of it.’ For Dragon-i, that narrative drew on the cinematic world of Wong Kar-Wai, sidestepping nostalgia and specializing in its highly effective environment, rigidity, and emotional nuances.

The studio had not beforehand labored in Hong Kong, however says that distance was a bonus. ‘It’s fairly constructive, as a result of you’re looking at a spot with recent eyes,’ says Lees. ‘Spend time with Gilbert, who gave us a totally totally different viewpoint. It was a way of pure discovery.’ By collaborating with JJA, they gained entry to regional craftspeople whose talent exhibits in all the main points all through the completed area.

The result’s an entire remodeling of the unique, transferring away from the established codes of nightlife to the place acoustics and aesthetics carry equal weight, and a setting during which a high-spec sound and lighting system enhances a fastidiously thought-about materials palette.

The stained glass ceiling, handcrafted by a third technology atelier in Manila, options detailing in collage kind. Every color is exactly textured, and the sequencing fastidiously calculated. ‘From the very starting, we talked about cinematography,’ says Lees, ‘the way you create these snippets of reminiscence that somebody carries with them the subsequent day. So, whenever you first stroll into the membership, you squeeze by way of a hall – one tone, one color – and that units your temper to what’s then revealed whenever you stroll by way of the curtain. All the things is choreographed in a body format.’

The redesign transforms Dragon-i into two interconnected however distinct experiences. The primary, anchored by a bar, a central DJ console, mirrored ceiling installations, and silver leather-based banquettes, is a lounge on weeknights and a full-energy membership at weekends. The supplies are layered and tactile: colored glass bricks, timber flooring, pendant lighting, and bespoke textiles, and the cellular mirrored screens imply the entire area may be reconfigured for dwell units. Adjoining is the brand new members membership, constructed round Yeung’s personal vinyl assortment and named 115, his most well-liked tempo – the disco groove between home music and hip hop. Turquoise velvet strains the partitions, offset by stained glass and heat picket panels.

An acoustic field inside a field homes the video games room and karaoke area, designed round how teams truly use them: sitting round a desk, transferring between video games, and with somebody singing alongside relatively than in one other room. Plans for dwell jazz, intimate performances, and casual talks will introduce one other cultural dimension.

Dragon-i is positioned at LKF Tower, 33 Wyndham Road, Central, Hong Kong