Fabric

Fabric opened in a blaze of publicity on 1 October on the site of a former Smithfield Meat Market cold-store in east London. An enterprise funded by a group of private investors, the 2000sqm venue comprises three dance floors, three bars, VIP lounge, juice bar, restaurant, roof terrace and courtyard garden.

Fabric’s mission statement is: ‘To become and remain the world’s leading dance music venue’. Opening such a large venue and marketing it as a cutting edge destination is a high risk business and the need to move with the times has been taken into account in the venue’s design. Inventive yet simple, it relies largely on lighting for the creation of mood.

‘It’s approaching a theatre backdrop. Most clients tend to have to redecorate almost every six months, Fabric doesn’t suffer from that problem,’ says Graham Howard, a director at Forward Architecture, which created the interior styling.

No expense has been spared on sound systems in the club, an impressive example being the main dance floor and performance space. With 500 bass speakers beneath its sprung surface, the dance floor doubles as a giant, vibrating speaker.

The cubicles in the unisex loo area are another point of interest. ‘The brief was to have something that looked like a million dollars, but was indestructible. Our response was to use blued (flame-treated) steel, and rather than frame it we’ve bent it and shaped it so it stands up in its own right,’ explains Howard.

Natural materials have been used imaginatively throughout Fabric in a ‘back to basics’ theme. Bar seating, for example, has been created from shock-blasted railway sleepers, while crushed glass panels are used in the framework supporting the bars.

Fabric’s bar areas were designed by Alchemist while Intro created the Fabric identity, print material and graphic installations.