Architectural & Design

Collective
Location: Marine Terrrace, Margate, Kent. CT9 1XJ.
Size: 12,000 sq.ft.

The Mission:

Dreamland Head offices and Ziggy’s Rooftop Bar & BBQ is another key venue within the newly re-birthed Dreamland Margate - a culturally transformative, local-economy-stimulating reimagining the famous amusement park that originally launched in the late 19th Century and was re-named as Dreamland during it’s 1920s renaissance.

 

Our Response:

Bringing a sense of exoticism to the Kent coast, as well as referencing the UK’s rich association with Afro-Caribbean culture, Ziggy’s is a laid back Jamaican rum shack located on a central rooftop of the dreamland offices overlooking the beach. Accessible only via a back alley stairwell to increase visitors’ sense of stumbling upon a hidden gem, it’s a space where DJs and acoustic music sessions are played in homage to endless summers (regardless of the time of year) and acknowledgment of the chilled-out charisma of reggae culture.

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The design is artfully low-fi; referencing the ad hoc, constantly changing potency of street art, fly-poster style graphic motifs are daubed directly onto brick walls, a corner bar with a corrugated metal rooftop looks aptly makeshift and a series of timber posts provide the structure for impromptu canopies and outdoor lighting installations. The colour palette is Rastafarian, red, yellow and green.

 

While Ziggy’s operates as a bar in it’s own right, the versatile venue also provides a key pre-event and post gig after party space for musicians performing on Dreamland Margate’s main stages as well as a hospitality space for staff and clients using the dreamland offices on floors below.

 

The vibrant office design not only offer a fresh coastal escape but is also inherently tethered to the park’s grounding in music, music culture, art and performance as a catalyst for local cultural regeneration.

 

It’s structurally rough-and-ready, festival-referencing demeanour and capacity to be spatially re-worked according to pre- and post-concert gigs echoes the way in which other Dreamland venues have also been designed to bend according to the needs of the park’s other events and activities.