Rise Bakehouse, Chinatown

The café has a bare concrete ceiling about 4 to 5 metres high, a glass shopfront, and hard floors and tables. Voices and coffee machine sounds bounce around the room, so it gets loud when the café fills up.

The café also has neighbours upstairs, so the team wanted to know how much drilling there would be before they agreed to a date.

We visited the café and planned a layout of white fabric acoustic panels hung from the ceiling as clouds on thin steel wires. They sit in a staggered pattern around the cable trays, lights and aircon, so nothing is blocked and everything can still be serviced. White panels blend into the ceiling, so the café keeps its open, industrial look.

Before the install, we sent the team photos of how the work is done so they could brief their landlord. The ceiling drilling is light, not heavy.

We installed on a Tuesday, the café's closed day, from about 9am to 5pm. We came in through the back door to avoid the bus lane out front. We moved the furniture out of the way and put it all back in the same spots. On the day, we found the aircon was not quite where the plan showed, so we adjusted a few panel positions and agreed them with the team in person.

The install was done in one day, on the café's day off, with no disruption to service. The team was happy with the look when they saw the finished ceiling.