Studio Gameiro Creates Unique Dining Furniture for Portuguese Restaurant, Austa.
Located in Algarve, Southern Portugal, Austa is on a mission to provide a platform for small, independent projects and producers and also creativity in the region.
The restaurant has a harmonious fusion of traditional and vernacular influences, alongside modern functionality that provides visitors with a comforting space rooted in a healthy and sustainable ethos.
But they lacked one crucial detail, having an atmosphere that oozed and captured their mission. Knowing that the Southern Portugal provinces or region is packed with incredible hotels and restaurants, some of them lack space that tell visitors the traditions of intricate craft and texture. This is where Studio Gameiro stood out.
The design-focused agency is multidisciplinary and innovative and happens to specialize in traditional artisanship or sustainable design for interiors, lighting design, architecture and furniture design.
Studio Gameiro made use of materials utilizing the sense of touch for the restaurant, cladding the walls in soft lime stucco in tan hues and earth beige.
The majority of the furniture used in the project was custom built including a collection of bespoke plinths (made out of locally mined rock salt) and a 4-metre-long bench). Fortunately, right under the restaurant is a rock salt mine 230 million years old, the studio had to make use of the materials and convinced the Loulé mine (a town in Portugal) to collaborate to transform some of the leftover pieces into building blocks and churning them to form a completely original object.
The leftover pieces were turned into blocks and carved in the same dimensions as terracotta tiles used in several complementary projects.
Both owners of Austa and Studio Gameiro collaborated and worked with local artisans to create custom-made furniture (wooden stools informed by Portuguese café chairs) and locally made aluminium chairs.
