Searcys pop-up bar
Searcys came to us with a brief that cut against the grain of how exhibition spaces usually get built. No single-use shell schemes. No flat-pack corporate furniture destined for landfill. A champagne bar — Est. 1847 — that could hold its own against some of the most architecturally significant interiors in London.
The answer was in the material. Pleated, folded, endlessly reconfigurable. The same structural logic that lets a partition wall curve into a semi-circular backdrop can compress a full bar counter into a flat-pack for the next show. Nothing wasted. Everything considered.
Working within a precisely dimensioned show floor plan — 4.9 metres wide, just over a metre deep — we explored multiple configurations: curved semi bars, straight service counters, open and enclosed backdrops. Three colourways. Staffed and unstaffed versions. Every variable considered before a single piece of furniture was ordered.
Concept-to-client used to mean weeks of back-and-forth between brief and first visual. With AI, we compressed that into hours. Each configuration — bar shape, colour palette, seatings arrangement, people placement — was rendered in a fully realised environment that looked exactly like the finished article. The client could see the orange bar with the blue backdrop. The yellow counter with women in evening wear. The empty stand with four chairs.
No ambiguity. No interpretation required. Just a clear decision.
That’s the shift. Not AI instead of creative thinking — AI as the tool that makes creative thinking visible, faster.
