The design strategy revolves around the creation of a new centrepiece courtyard garden. Whilst affording maximum natural light penetration, this serves as both a backdrop to the main customer area and a buffer between the existing bus garage and the bar restaurant.

Intimate dining areas occupy the shop window arrangement, leading onto the main bar area. The courtyard is flanked by customer area on two sides, creating a sense of ‘interior’ about the garden, a seamless transition further accentuated by the glazed ‘inside-outside’ fireplace.

The historic St Andrews stream once crossed the site of this building, a fact that inspired the design of the courtyard seating booths. Formed using sections of underground drainage pipe the booths forge a tangible link between the present and the history that lies beneath.

Further local memories are captured in the limestone paving, cut from a local quarry and the recycled bottle windows within the booth seats, serving as a reminder of the former bottling factory nearby. The bottles in these portholes were reclaimed from the clients own waste and cut to form the south facing porthole windows.