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VALUE: €7 million DURATION: 8 months
- This building was formerly known as the “Jazz Club”, an eight-sided pagoda-like structure located on Pleasure Island at the centre of Downtown Disney World, Orlando. This area is the hub of entertainment venues at the Disney resort, comprising restaurants, live music venues, bars, and retail outlets, and is home to Cirque Du Soleil, Wolfgang Puck, Rainforest Café among others. Disney were relinquishing operation of their own facilities, and the new (Irish) owner of this venue wanted to create an Irish Bar and Restaurant, with an emphasis on the quality of the dining experience and the late-night live music and entertainment.
- It also had to pass muster with a thorough and particular Disney “Imagineering” design department. The building was to seat in excess of 450 inside, with a further 200 seats outside on terraces. The challenge was therefore to break the spaces down into identifiable and distinct areas whose proportions were comfortable for small groups of customers, while retaining the integrity of the ‘whole’ and allowing it still to function as a single live-music venue. These separate areas, which can be sectioned-off for private parties and events, are arranged around a central top-lit space which became a Victorian-style “Great Hall”.
- The existing 8-sided high level aluminium windows were re-worked to more traditional vertical proportions, and inserted with coloured glazing to cast shards of warm red and yellow light into this space. New oversized “traditional” shopfront facades were erected to the perimeter of the retained building, breaking down the mass of the structure into different elements with distinct identities. These facades take references from much-loved and familiar haunts around Dublin city and elsewhere. The completed renovation of 12,000 sq. ft. houses 2 bars, full kitchens, a retail outlet, a separate 50-seat traditional fish’n’chip shop, and several outside terrace areas.
- Website: www.raglanroad.com
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