Cuckoo

Lisburn Road, Belfast

We were approached by Mr Bill Woolsley who had recently taken control of this vast bar which over the years has had many incarnations...The Ashley, Hunters, Ma Nelson's. The ethos of the bar was to be framed for the under 35 market and as such the concept of Cuckoo was to be more akin to Giros, the 'home-made' punk retreat of the eighties and the artist commune in Berlin that was Tacheles.

Carefully stripping away the previous layers, hidden rooms, funky old wallpaper and other curious finds were revealed which we embraced and added to.

Engaging the use of local graffitti artists who were encouraged to 'let loose' we set about transforming an old giant of a bar into something much more relevant for today's younger market and a stripped back, slightly chaotic and 'hand-made' space emerged complete with Ping-Pong.