Interiors for restaurants, bars, nightclubs & hotels
Atmosphere is what sells the third drink, the dessert and the digestif. We design rooms that bring guests in, keep them longer and bring them back.
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A gilded cocktail parlour on Old Street. No. 6 of the World's 50 Best Bars 2016.
A Pacific tiki bar with a voodoo twist, lit low and warm from under the copper bar.
Where Mad Men meets Blade Runner. Among the World's Top 500 Bars.
An old metalworks garage with room for two food trucks inside.
A Swiss promotional restaurant in two versions, and a gold three-wheeled food truck.
New York · London · Geneva
Helen Calle-Lin has spent more than thirty years creating places people love to spend time in. She has designed and built twelve restaurants, bars, clubs and festivals herself, across interior architecture, lighting and ambience. For years she also ran them, which taught her what a room has to do on a full night of service.
That operating experience is what she brings to every project: she designs for the guest, the staff behind the bar and the numbers at the end of the night. Today she focuses entirely on design, with relooking and new concepts for owners and investors in New York, London and Geneva.
Atmosphere is what sells the third drink, the dessert and the digestif.
Guests rarely name it, but they feel it within a minute of walking in. In a restaurant, harsh lighting and a tired room make people eat and leave. A room that feels right makes them order dessert, then a coffee, then a digestif, and stay for the conversation.
In a bar, a great ambience is measured in the third drink and the ones after it. A great mood becomes a great memory, and a great memory is the reason people come back and bring their friends. That return visit is what keeps a venue alive.
I design a venue like a film set. Your guests are the characters, and every element of the room tells them who they are tonight. These are the elements I work through on every project.
A site visit, ideally during service, and a written report on what the room is costing you: light, layout, flow, acoustics, bar ergonomics and identity.
A fast transformation of an existing venue with little or no closure, working with what you already have wherever it serves the concept.
A complete concept for a new venue or a full redesign, from the story of the place to the day the doors open.
Structural work and building permits are carried out with licensed local architects and engineers.
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