Design Award Winners (2019)

Vault

Project Overview

Crafted in a raw yet warm palette of concrete, wood, steel, and leather, Vault is a straightforward bar concept, drawing basic inspiration from the idea of distillation; the designers and clients sought to extract the essential meaning of each carefully chosen material for the space in service to joining people with amazing whiskeys and delicious cocktails. The design of the former bank vault demanded a genuine interaction between the visitor’s eye, hand, and palette, with carefully detailed and fabricated tactile materials like black oak slab tables, a charred white oak wood wall--akin to the inside of a bourbon barrel--and the penultimate pleasurable engagement of leather wrapped over steel for the bar itself. As great whiskeys get better with age, real materials patina with real character. The space is at once modern and minimal, unpretentious, and animated with backdrop of the best bourbon selection in the state of Arkansas.