Cornish design collective, Hooperberg, chose the sustainable wood-based panel for use as internal cladding at the Hub-Box, a diner-restaurant that specialises in gourmet burgers, hotdogs and craft beers.
The original Hub-Box started out as a pop-up restaurant housed in a converted 40ft shipping container on Lemon Quay in St Ives. Despite its rough-and-ready aesthetic, the Hub-Box is a permanent, fully-licensed mini-restaurant with a commercial kitchen and seating for 20 inside.
The new Exeter branch is located in an old bakery, though a 20ft shipping container has again been employed to house the kitchen.
To keep installation costs down wherever possible, existing finishes were re-used. “The concrete flooring was ground back then re-polished,” explains Hooperberg founder Stuart Watt. “The wall tiles were removed to expose brickwork and the shopfront was adapted rather than replaced.”
The restaurant shares the same design concept as the St Ives original and Norbord's Sterling OSB was used as a design feature, as well as a structural component.
“OSB is used in all kinds of construction, but it’s rarely seen because it’s covered up with other finishes,” says Stuart. “We wanted to expose the material so you could see the structure. And we felt it added warmth and texture too.
“I can’t tell you exactly how much we used, but there’s quite a lot in there. It’s used for partitioning between seating areas, and as cladding for the toilet units and to contain the exposed staircase. We’ve used Sterling OSB on a few other projects and it’s always performed well.”
To retain the material’s natural appearance, the exposed OSB has been finished with a simple PVA-based lacquer.
