Despite the apparent glitz and dazzle of your average nightclub interior, the strength of a truly outstanding club design lies in its subtlety. So, for all the bold, intensely visual gestures made throughout San Jose, Calif. restaurant/nightclub Motif, the overall theme of Asian aesthetics brought to the project by the redoubtable interior design/systems installation team of Richard Rutherford and Charles Doell stayed wisely but consistently below the surface. “The suggestion [we made to the owner] was to bring in some elements that might have some feeling of an Asian kind of idea, without being overtly sort of Buddhas and bamboo,” says Doell, founder of Mister Important. “What we ended up with was sort of like a dark opulence, because we did everything in shades of black, white and grey and then we used LED lights to provide the color when we went from restaurant to nightclub in the evening.”

Artistically designed chairs blend seamlessly.

...And Tom, Too
The visual, er, motifs start the minute patrons walk in under a bamboo curtain eight feet above the gate. Once within the courtyard, one can see a cropped floral pattern painted onto the building, hinting at the more dramatic reveal inside. Custom-designed cabanas, tables and chairs introduce the spare, monochromatic design elements Doell scatters throughout the space, while four large custom RGB LED fixtures aim color at the space above the building’s exterior balcony. Sound here is covered by four EAW SMS4 speakers, specially tuned to keep volume below the San Jose public code without sacrificing atmosphere.

Once inside, however, the party begins in earnest, as a variety of design touches both simple and extravagant overwhelm the patron. British sculptor Eva Menz, who initially collaborated with Doell on the wave chandelier for Reno’s 210 North, made a repeat engagement at Motif with a similar installation. It consists of two undulating leaf shapes made of 9,000 individual pieces of black glass. The leaves curve around each other above the heads of the diners below while, around them, a sheer curtain of daisy-link chains partially shields the second-floor mezzanine and balcony above. The alternating black and silver links of the curtain create a floral pattern loaned to Doell by fashion designer Amy Butler. “We wanted to create kind of a little bit of privacy for the upstairs area, but we didn’t want to block their view to downstairs, which is why I wanted to use a chain, so they could see right through it,” Doell explains.

These chains also transform easily through the illumination provided by seven Elation Design LED 60 strips, and 12 RGB LED DMX fixtures custom made by Rutherford. “The interesting thing about the job was that everything was RGB LED,” says Rutherford, founder of Rutherford Design. “So, there was a great mixture of some one-watt pieces, half-watt pieces, linear pieces, flood pieces and spot pieces.” (He neglected to mention the good ol’ Edison light bulbs within the silk lampshades crowning the booths as well as the custommade brass lamps atop the VIP bar areas, but we’ll forgive him.)

Six EAW JFX100i 10-inch two-way speakers handle the dining area’s highs, while two EAW SB180zP 18-inch subwoofers provide the low end for moments when it’s time to push the wheeled booths and tables away for either a DJ-driven event or a live performance, which can be mixed on the Yamaha 124FX-BXS-2 console. “The downstairs room is very large, [so] we wanted something that was not beamy but created, especially at low level, a very transparent acoustical environment,” says Rutherford. The speakers, therefore, were placed alongside the balcony. “With a selection of the program on the [EAW DX810] DSP, it transforms into a live system, so that the sound is focused mainly from the stage area in that room,” he says. “So there’s more of a point source reference.”

That's not a chair...that's a picture of a chair.

This Is Not A Chair
Upstairs, the dancefloor gets a bit cramped with a ceiling of only 11 feet, so Rutherford eschewed moving heads for this area’s lighting. Instead, nine Elation Professional Design LED 60 strips and six Elation Tracpod 81s are controlled along with the rest of the upstairs lighting by a Show Designer Two. In addition to dismissing the stark black and white shades of the day, they also illuminate a very uniquely shaped vinyl ceiling concept. Doell placed Ubrackets underneath a vinyl covering he sourced from San Francisco’s French Ceiling. “It’s kind of like the cocoon fixtures you see that were done in the ’50s, when they would take a wire structure and then they would blow fiberglass over it and it would suck in,” he says.

As for sound in this room, Rutherford knew the speakers would be positioned closer than usual to the patron. So, the room’s four EAW JFX100s were chosen for their “120-degree drivers that had a fairly narrow vertical dispersion so we could keep [sound] from bouncing off the ceilings and walls,” says Rutherford. Push-button wall remotes hooked up to the EAW DX810 can shift music throughout the space, or maneuver to whatever’s playing on the television or someone’s iPod.

All the system’s amplifiers, as well as a JVC DVD player, are situated in a frosted glass closet in the middle of the upstairs VIP area. When closed, this glass closet also doubles as a screen for a Sanyo 2000 lumen video projector. Video can also be distributed to six locations around the dining area, as well as two 15" plasmas to the left and right of the bar downstairs. Next to this screen are two tear-shaped window displays that can be rented out by liquor distributors - a valueadd commonly used by Doell in many of his designs. “We try to create that in clubs whenever we can, because it’s a good opportunity for the club owners to get a little bit of money back from the liquor reps,” says Doell.

Also of note in the VIP area are the silhouettes of four chairs upon four rectangular panels - a playful, custommade addition by British wallpaper artist Deborah Bowness. “You can’t really call it wallpaper because each individual panel is like hand silkscreened, so it’s not like she just produces a pattern. She’s doing basically art,” Doell says. “But I loved her chairs, so she did like five chairs for us, for the opposite side of the dancefloor where we didn’t want to put chairs because there isn’t really room for them. So we used those chairs instead.”

Also of note is a 14-foot-tall mural of a Chinese actress, the only apparent nod to the Asian aesthetic permeating the design. “It was a portrait someone had gotten a hold of and had done a huge digital print of it in two big banner pieces,” Doell says. “[The owner] was the one who was actually, ‘Oh, no. We shouldn’t get it because it’s too Asian.’ But it was really great.”

Given all of the elements that went into making this Motif, it’s easy to forget that the space is only 8,000 square feet. But in the busy nightlife corridor of South First Street that also includes Angels and the soon-to-open Club Wet, any club looking to compete needs to supply enough bang for one’s buck. So no matter which direction the nightlife or restaurant economy may go, Motif’s system and design provides maximum flexibility and eye candy for any outcome. “I think this place looks awesome,” says Doell. “It’s really a hard space to photograph, because there is so much pattern in it. But in person, it’s really impressive and people really love [it]. So yeah, I was really happy with it.”

www.motiflounge.com

Back To Top