office interior designer calgary
benny jakupaj: when i heardabout sandy, really, i wasn't too stressed out, because iwas thinking back a year prior, we had hurricane irene,which they were making a big deal, and really nothinghappened. michael bloomberg: i'd like togive everybody a little more of an update on the city'spreparations for hurricane sandy right now. benny jakupaj: afterthe storm, i walked into wall street.
there were all thegarbage cans. there were bags, sandbags,everything laid on the street. nobody was walking. so when i opened the front door,not at the back but it was like someplace dark, nolighting, and full of water. then it was unbelievable. i just took a breath, andi said, you know what? let me go upstairs. and i just started thinking,what should i do to get the
place moving? before sandy, really,we weren't expecting to do any changes. maybe small changeshere and there. since we were down to the groundwith the water and everything was ripped out,we said, you know what? let's take a chance and speed upthe process, and just give the place a new look. dwayne clark: benny and nick,who are the owners of the
restaurant, they contactedthe office. and two hours after theycontacted us, i met with them. and the main objective was, theygot destroyed by sandy. they told us that theyhad two weeks, and we hit the ground running. benny jakupaj: we are working12, 13, 14 hours a day. it's because december is abig, big month for us. and we try and-- all my clients,all the parties that we have, all the people that aresupposed to come in-- not
to disappoint them. dwayne clark: the name of therestaurant, giardino d'oro, means garden, italian garden. and we wanted to take thecasualness of what they had prior and really takeit up a notch. benny jakupaj: you know, wealways say, once it's done, we've got to look for a solutionto get it better. the first floor didn't look badbecause there was not much water left up there.
dwayne clark: one of the thingsthat we did on the first floor dining room isremove the wall-to-wall carpet and brought in this unbelievabletile to create an old venetian, sort of basicallyrustic barn wood, elevating the character of whatthe restaurant had before to be a casual outsidegarden, too a much more formal aesthetic. we wanted to keep the frontfirst floor of the restaurant light so that it reallyflowed with the stone.
they were water damagedthroughout. we had some sprinklers that hadwent off because of fire issues, potentially,in the building. so one of detriments and themost negative aspects of the conditions here were the flood,but also, the water came in from the ceilingas well. literally, the furniturethat was here before-- the dining tables, thedining chairs-- all ruined.
we brought in master craftswoodworkers and artisans that's going to be basicallytake this millwork and cocoon it with the original moldingthat was here. one of the things you have tokeep in mind with such a large space that's going housepretty much 125 people are the acoustics. we have to treat the wallsequivalent to be sound-absorbed, and the lightinghas to be just right for safety issues, but yet stillkeeping in mind with the
intimate setting. what are we going to bedoing in this space? we have maya romanoff wallcoverings that's going to be on the ceiling. we have fabric manufacturers,such as kravet, duralee-- some of the leading manufacturers here in the city. one of the things we're mostproud of here in this downstairs areas is ourmaster-crafted woodworking.
the wainscoting that's takenfrom the minute you walk in takes you all the way around thedining room, takes you all the way to the other endof our wine cellar. so when someone is sitting ata dining table height, we wanted them to actually besubmerged in this gorgeous millwork, in return achievingthe same thing of increasing the height of the ceiling. the flood here took the heightof the water approximately 30 inches, which is exactly tableheight, dining table height.
the chairs were submerged. down here it's going to beunbelievably, remarkably cozy. you're going to have a diningtable that's going to seat 25 people, and you're going tohave old world venetian chandeliers. so it could be an intimateseating for 10, up to 25 people, and one of the oldestwine collections in the city of manhattan. we're going to bring in stonefrom the end of this millwork,
all the way down to the end ofthe wall, that totally will enclose you and cocoon you intoan unbelievable dining experience. benny jakupaj: dwayne'splans about the place? i think he did it well. i must say, he did it well. i mean, in the beginning, itwas hard to believe him. but as we moved on, it looksgreat, and i think we'll look forward in the future, also,maybe when we open different
restaurants, we will like touse him again and again, as long as we'll be around. dwayne clark: i walked into thisspace and the first thing i thought was, damn, i'mglad they found us. really thrilled to give thema complete transformation. flood, two weeks, put yourthanksgiving, your personal life, your business life asideand camp out here for two weeks in the middleof a holiday. most challenging hospitalityproject ever.
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