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Fast forward to the present, and Downey has established some of the city’s most noteworthy establishments. Match Bar came first, with operations in Clerkenwell, the West end and Shoreditch now firmly established. We set up the concept to be more than one site explains Downey, but I think we underestimated how successful we would be. In fact, when the company were opening their second venture, Downey was still working full time in the city (he was a lawyer in his previous life). I realised that I was spending too much time on my own thing and nor enough time in the office, so I gave up being a lawyer and concentrated on the bar business. At this point in the progression, he admits that he was playing a game of chance; “We had not strategy or game plan, we just stumbled along really. Expansion has been opportunistic.”

Developing the Match Bar Group, Downey then turned his attention towards the private members genre. Again, progression was opportunistic. The Player went out of business, and I’d always really loved it, so it seemed logical to set about reopening it. Then the Milk & Honey site becomes available. After seeing the operation in New York, I felt it would be perfect for London, he enthuses.

Trailer Happiness is the latest scheme from Downey. Previously trading as Canvas, once more, fortune played its part in making a desirable location available. The basement bar takes Tiki as its inspiration, and the décor has been modelled accordingly. With design by Odd, eclectic object dart adorn the walls, and create obvious points of interest. But that is not where the heart of this operation lies. The one thing we have always been best at is drinks states Downey clearly. Our venues have never been about interior design, they have never been about celebrity connection or big named djs, its all been about the drinks.

What makes Trailer Happiness exceptional is the lengths that Downey has gone to make it as authentic as possible. I wanted to explore another element of drinking culture that hasn’t been done properly on the UK. I think we did that with Milk and Honey. We went back to the 1920s and 30s and really went into the ideas of the speakeasy, and the classics. I had no intention of doing Tiki drinks when I first took over this site, but it lent itself so well to that kitsch Americana vibe. That whole era of optimism and exotica, and after I started researching it, it all came together.

A whole host of expertise has been harnessed to ensure the Trailer Happiness lives up to Downey’s demands for perfection. Dale DeGroff (director of drinks for the Match Bar Group) had just discovered that Don Beech’s wife has just printed a book of his recipes that were closely guarded secrets for over 75 years. He discovered the original recipe for the Zombie, and we put it on the list, he says. At the same time I was swapping emails with Angus Winchester of IP Bartenders on the subject of Tikis drinks, and he brought some other influential books to my attention. Then there were Soulshakers, Michael Butt and Giles Looker, both ex-Match bartenders. They were really enthused in the subject continues Downey, as was Pete Kendall, formerly of Milk and Honey. Whose help we also enlisted. The end result? It was dead easy in the end to come up with a lost of 12 great drinks, and know how to serve them perfectly, with so many experts being involved.

The importance of drinks and the high standards executed behind the bar bind Downeys portfolio of operations together. There is a dirth of new talent, and we have retained a core of really exceptional bartenders. The secret? We have been producing great bartenders for years, and that is thanks to working with guys like Dick Bradsell, Dale DeGroff, and Taste and Flavour. If you are serious about being a bartender, where else are you gong to go? You are not only going to work with the world’s greatest living bartender, Dale DeGroff, but you are also going to be working with a team of bartenders who are among the best currently working behind bars. Downey prides himself on the excellent training that his staff receive, and feels that this contributes greatly to the success of his venues: This may be a little overambitious, but I always like to think that if you want to be a bartender, having us on your CV is like being a chef and having The Ivy on your CV. People know you have had a good, all-round education and that you have a real understanding of what it takes to make a bar work.

Not only does Downey pride himself on the standard of his staff, but his high standards are also represented by what brands his establishments stock. I think most owners aren’t’ concerned about what they stock behind their bar, and it shows. It shows in their drinks, in their lack of loyal customers and their longevity. There are certain products we have not stocked and will not stock, no matter how much money is offered to us. Nothing goes on the back bar without my approval. There are some shocking products on the market and we really don’t need it.

So what does the future hold in store for the Match Bar Group? It seems there will be more of a strategy employed than ever before: The next three years are all about expanding with a plan, less haphazardly than before. We are going to do three more Match-bar like venues. I still want to do an operation abroad; the French Alps is currently favourite. I am also planning to expand the members side of things. We are very close to doing a deal on the third members bar site in Soho with a 3am licence. A two-floor site, it will be small and intimate and hopefully we will be announcing it before Christmas.

Downey is also realistic about what he can achieve: I would love to do something in Los Angeles, or maybe something in Havana. But it is important not to get carried away with the seductiveness of opening a bar somewhere. Ultimately, it has to make commercial sense. With such dedication to exceptional standards, it is clear that Downey has definite ideas on what does and doesn’t work, So far, he is a little frustrated by what others have to offer. Asked what excites him in the industry, he replies absolutely nobody. It’s embarrassing. Everything is derivative, nothing is original. They are all still doing the stuff that was done at the Met bar, basically shaking vodka with fruit. I mean at Trailer Happiness and at La Beauvallon (Downey took his Match bar magic to St Tropez this summer) we produced a homage menu, where we listed the best drinks from great bartenders around the world. There were two drinks on there from UK bartenders: Salvatore Calabrese’s Breakfast Martini and a drink from IP Bartenders. He concludes: I used to get bar envy on a regular basis, but the last time I had it was over two years ago. I just don’t get it anymore.

So what is needed? A bit more invention and some fresh blood offers Downey. I think there needs a whole bunch of new people to come into the industry. With one or two exceptions, we have very little competition. The mentality is all design led, trophy bar focused, busy for six months. It needs a new generation to come n and do something different. It needs more women involved in the industry too.

The success of Downey’s business is his focus, a factor at times that has proven problematic: “I wish I had not been a pioneer, but an early settler, because they get all the benefit without the pain, getting killed by the native.” But the importance of his actions are obvious. Downey and his army of bartenders have taken drinks making the UK to new levels, and he had no signs of slowing down. By harnessing and encouraging their skills and enthusiasm, and by constantly seeking out industry experts to keep their thirst for knowledge whetted, he easily gives his competitors and his customers a reason to return.

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The finished project is frighteningly kitsch, containing enough tat to do your gran proud, says Bethan Ryder 

Entering the Naked office is an Odd experience, the reception resembles a granny flat lounge with a three-piece suite form Courts, netting, fireplace and a curled up moggie. One meeting room (aka the Trophy Room) resembles a dining room decked out with Naked numerous Campaign and Media Week awards, plus bespoke trophies awarded for excellence in other areas, baring plaques entitled Fairplay Kerplunck, Hari Kreshna After lifetime Achievment and Under 12’s cockfighting. 

A second meeting/breakout room features assorted clocks displaying the time zones of obscure (but real) global destination: Big Bounce, Homo, Nobber and Monkey’s Eyebrow. 

A large area masquerades as a garden complete with fake strip mown grass, a huge picnic table and a patio guarded by a pair of giant begging topiary dogs. 

The garden is where the designers behind this kitsch, make-yourself-at-home office interior reside, ensconced in an area just behind the brick built mobile barbecue which houses DJ decks, naturally. 

Odd comprises a trio of talented, forward thinking creatives. RCA architecture and interiors graduates Jonathan Mangham and Nick Stickland and St Martins industrial design graduate Simon Glover. 

The threesome cannily designed themselves into the same office as their client, Naked, which inhabits most of the space. 

Naked is a young pioneering multi-award-winning strategic thinking and communications agency, which boasts such clients as PlayStation, Honda, Reebok and Heineken. Although Naked and Odd are separate companies, their services are complementary, they often collaborate on projects and they are both working with ad agency WRCS on the 118 The Number campaign. 

Naked played a major role in the strategy and concept, and Odd designed various aspects of the campaign, most notably the ice-cream van. 

Whereas Naked deals in strategic thinking for brands and companies, Odd is a multidisciplinary design consultancy. Odd works across the spectrum producing everything from architecture (bars in Tel Aviv and the Alps to private residencies in London) through to advertising and brand physicality for companies like Siemens Xelibri (a soundproof mobile phone pod) and Play Station. 

Stickland says refurbishing Naked’s Clerkenwell office in London was ‘about creating a physical presence for Naked and taking the website and identity into reality. It’s a reflection of its personality as a company and its important for companies to be brave enough to do that.’ 

The idea for creating the quirky home-from-home was inspired by Naked’s website, www.nakedcomms.com, which is organised around the notion of the home. Stickland recalls the brief with fondness. ‘It was seriously one of the best architectural briefs I’ve had, slightly shit with a slightly shit budget (less than £40,000), and the outcome is pleasantly bad. 

Its quite a fine line between really bad and bad when you’re trying to prescribe crap, Kitsch is quite a tough thing to achieve but I think we’ve just about got there.’ Gazing around at corporate chairs disguised by Cath Kidston and Barbie fabric thee stone cladding and shed wall along one side concealing cupboards complete with mannequin dummy hands for doorknobs reminiscent of Chapman brother’s weirdness, I’ll have to agree. 

Odd has effectively subverted the whole notion of the office and the result is quite unnervingly David Lynchian. Mangham says ‘We thought “how can you take items with real office iconicity like a standard office chair, and cross-programme that with a Cath Kidston fabric or make a giant picnic table work as a desk?” 

It was about taking something everyday and changing it.’ It was about turning something quite dry into something quite rich while allowing the office to live and breath while the renovations were going on, ‘ continues Stickland. 

The reception itself was transformed over a weekend and the project is always evolving. For example, beds are planned for the main office area so that the Naked team can recline while it thinks. The refurbishment was essentially cosmetic. 

‘Originally it was a very corporate office with blue carpet tiles, white walls and MDF desks, a bit of exposed brick,’ says Mangham. ‘We looked at any surface that we could treat to eradicate that normal, corporate slickness, be that wall papering, stone cladding or applying plastic ivy.’ The majority of the project was spent sourcing – that’s shopping to you and me – with Odd scouring Snooper’s Paradise in Brighton in particular for ‘genuine granny stuff’. 

It is especially proud of its dog plate collection, each featuring a portrait fo a different breed, and the fireplace on wheels which conceals storage cupboards while also allowing easy access to it. 

Despite and old-school approach to DIY, Odd is far from traditionalist, indeed to offer such a breadth of services is unique. One of its foremost skills seems to be demonstrating complex, intangible concepts in a simple, visual and entertaining way, this is something it wishes to develop further in its work for brands. 

The most intriguing example of its innovative, leftfield thinking is the way it actually markets itself. Reverting to the oldest trick in the book, Odd sells itself out of a suitcase. However this is no ordinary suitcase, it houses a model town called Oddville. Odd was asked to present its company at an exhibition in New York, so a suitcase seemed the logical solution, its now it’s calling card. ‘It’s our business model,’ explains Mangham, instead of being a mission statement, its a physical model that packs down into a suitcase.’ 

Constructed by model-makes – Oddville, it has the Technicolor aura of a weird, middle-American town. Study it closely and there are zombies in the graveyard, a man stuck up a cow’s arse, and other oddities. It all sounds quite weird, and it really truly is. 

As for the Naked office, it could be seen as part of a trend. As we yearn for the familiar in this age of uncertainty, the domestic aesthetic is filtering through into retail and commercial design, with new designer boutiques resembling exclusive homes and bars posing as boudoirs, but an office? 

Surely home and work are two diametrically opposed entities? Or maybe Odd’s interior reflects our manic 24/7 communication times. People either spend every waking hour in the office, or alternatively working from home. 

Perhaps Odd’s concept isn’t so odd after all then. Just remember, home is where the heart is…. Case Notes Village Suitcase Odd doesn’t pitch for jobs like your average design consultancy, instead it brings along a suitcase, in which can be found Oddville. “Signposts announce our two arms: experience (event, product and architecture) and identity (identity, graphics and guerrilla advertising). 

Six trucks containers embedded in the hills represent the three categories in each. Clients (disguised as cows) come from the trucks down to us in the church of Odd, then we draw on our resource filed of freelancers – or rather sheep – and then the cows get herded to the production silo and are eventually pushed out into the real world through.

The Truman Show-style staircase into the sky backdrop,’ explains Mangham. It all makes perfect sense. Turf Love The grass is always greener especially when its supplied by Tiger Turf and installed by Sports and Leisure Turf. ‘It was quite fun calling up a company which is used to laying Tiger Turf for cricket and hockey pitches and running tracks and saying, “Erm, we’d like our Tiger Turf laid in two tone stripes in an office,” recalls Jonathon Mangham of Odd. Glowing with pride 

The neon signs add an element of ‘kebab crapness’ to the whole place. Produced by S&N signs, one sits over reception announcing ‘Naked’ while another ‘Odd’, is suspended over Odd’s desks and others glow above the meeting room doors. 

Strange request Odd also enjoyed making strange requests to the Silk Plant Company, which supplied the plastic ivy, but the most fun was asking for two topiary dogs and having to prescribe their position. Luckily the guy was well into it and created two begging dogs for Odd, although the T-Rex option was tempting.

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Designed in the mad kitschy style made so popular by ad agency Mother (think 1970s flocked wallpaper and camper vans as meeting rooms), it acts a refreshing change from the current crop of minimalist, tidy office interiors. Odd defines itself as a ‘boutique agency’ specialising in identity and brand physicality – that’s the realisation of the brand via 3D environments to you and me. Set up about a year ago (it previously traded under the name Cyan). It prides itself in a mixed bag of skills, including industrial design, architecture, print and digital design. The client list is impressive considering Odd’s short lifespan, and ranges from creating environments for the new PlayStation experience, mobile telephone pods for Siemens, work for new directory service 118 118 and private commissions for a luxury penthouse. The aesthetic affinity to Mother and communications strategy and media planning agency Naked – with whom it shares an office-might have something to do with their ongoing collaborative relationship. 

‘Odd, Naked and Mother are all independent companies’ clarifies Nick Stickland, one of Odd’s founding partners (the other is Simon Glover). ‘However, they are each complimentary to one another. For example, on the Siemens Xelibri project, Naked was responsible for the strategy, Mother did the advertising campaign and Odd designed the pod as an ambient marketing device for nightclubs’. 

Odd’s stroke of genius though is in its calling card. For first time meetings it has devised a large suitcase of Odd’s structure. Open the lid and clients are faced with Oddville, a landscape complete with miniature cows, sheep, trucks, a tiny village and church, mountains and even a staircase that leads to a door in the skyline, in a moment reminiscent of Peter Weir’s Truman Show film. 

Each model is a symbol – for example ‘cows carry clients’, explains Stickland and the ‘cows go into silos since Odd is not only about ideas and thinking, but also about process and managing all the production.’ The style of most of the group’s print work is – as with the office design- slightly over the top in a cheeky kind of way. The project book includes a ‘free stuff section’ – as in projects that are not paid for, but allowing odd unlimited creative freedom – and feature a stylised rendering in silhouette of the group, making it look like 1980’s boy band New Kids on the Block. 

But it’s the thought process that makes Odd stand out from the pack. For example, for Dutch beer brand Desperados (owned by Heineken). Naked created the strategy for the campaign whilst Odd designed the identity. Stickland explains how Odd came up with the fantasy story line of a lizard man cult. ‘Lizard man is a wrestler who fights only after dark. It’s a cult and his follower’s party hard after dark every time he wins. But once he fought a matinee match and died…So the cult rose to their feet’. Hence the Desperado campaign Dark after Dark, conceived as a mix of stickers, stencilling, badges and leaflets currently plastered all over Amsterdam and featuring the ghostly looking Lizard man image. 

The fun bit is never far away with Odd, as the collaboration with Naked on the below the line 118 118 campaign also showed, where moustached men took over the street in an ice cream van branded with low budget-feel graphics.

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oom’ for a family that had moved from they city to the seaside. The room is accessed via a glass roofer, glass walled ‘beach hut’ construction, which allows light to flood in through roof-light windows during the day (and also takes care of fire regulations). 

An extension like this would set you back approx £200,000

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s more crucial than the reception. If you see heavy glass revolving doors, sensible dark carpet, a couple of ferns, a water-cooler and a light pine laminate front desk, you could be in almost any office building in the world. 

So what does that say about the company?? But things are changing. Reception design is increasingly being used as an opportunity to review a company’s image, according to Richard Buckley of Buckley Gray, the architects who recently redesigned the offices of fiver (previously channel 5) to great acclaim. 

‘A reception is the shop front,’ he says, ‘and like fashion must respond to new ideas and perceptions.’ Where until recently only plush hotels, members clubs or bars could boast the most dynamic and fashion conscious designs for their front of house, these days the leisure industries have suddenly got some catching up to do with the corporate world. 

At the recently opened offices of Naked Communications, a creative communications agency in East London, visitors enter through surreal faux Georgian panelled doors to meet a receptionist who is seated behind an old leather topped writing desk. Just to their left they can see a warm and cosy looking living room – complete with three-piece suite and a Persian rug. 

Not what you’d expect from a young and dynamic creative agency. But that of course, is exactly the point. Nick Stickland is one of the four designers that make up ODD, which is responsible for Naked’s new interior. ‘In reception, clients and visitors are a captive audience, “ he explains 

“Businesses should capitalise on this and use the opportunity to create environments that stimulate and reflect the personality of the company. First impressions last.” And what are the key trends in reception area design at the moment? ‘Well, this week,” says Stickland, “we’re into garden-centre-gameshow meets Edwardian granny flat with a twist”

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