The Art of Design Issue 34 2018 | Page 99

99 Finally, the looped footprint of Below represents a rewinding of the distillation process, from bottle back to source. Elsewhere, an extensive walk-through wine cellar is a warren waiting to be discovered. Beyond Below’s whiskey stave walls lie three private dining rooms, each a play on the idea of what might lie hidden behind closed doors. The Broken Room is styled on the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi, a practice which involves repairing broken ceramics by bonding breaks with a golden glue. Guests dine within walls lined with cracked gesso; fractured pendants hang overhead and a bespoke table made of polished chestnut forms the centrepiece, its veins and wells now filled with golden resin. The Reading Room revolves around a collection of culinary books, from Michelin guides through to vintage cookbooks. Bespoke creations by British artist Su Blackwell, famed for her fairy- tale- focused paper sculptures, fly out of the bookshelf and away up the chimney, to Above.