You don’t pick Adelaide design team Addinson Livingstone unless you mean business. From
funky sushi bars to up-market restaurants; high fashion boutiques to executive suites, the art house team know how to create spaces that attract very specific clientele.

In retail design good looks and functionality are a given – what makes or breaks a business in this industry is whether the spaces they design make money.

Says partner at the firm, Simon Livingstone, “We’re striving to inspire customers to spend money
by creating wonderful environments. Making spaces memorable and enjoyable is the absolute key in retail. Why? Because it creates sales.”

So when Addison Livingstone was commissioned by an upmarket Adelaide prosthodontist to apply their retail-based architectural principles to his new high-profile 7-chair practice Livingstone had a little problem.

Flowing corridors, earth tones, soft-edged furniture and down-lights are vogue in dental design as
the industry polishes its image and presents itself as a more glamorous shopping experience. But that’s not the kind of work that he’s into.

He is not a man who softens edges or panders to pre-conceptions. He does not advocate a ‘gently does it’ approach and when the Addison Livingstone team finally found a suitable premises with their client, his next job, he says, was to make it “amazing! “The client might not have known it at the time and he might not have been confident in me when I told him, but I could see it plain as day: what we needed was something fairly freaky that would be a talking point people would remember.”

But first what Livingstone needed was a pencil. In his instinctive view as a retail architect Livingstone knew his dentist client needed to communicate something brilliant. “What are they coming for?” he asked himself, doodling sketches exploring the work and symbols of othodontistry, and the needs and desires of patients.

“Hmm,” he pondered, drawing circles reminiscent of dental mirrors and smiles and teeth. “They’re here for their teeth, sure,” he thought, sketching lips and bites and grins.

“For restoration work; for surgery after terrible accidents sometimes; for hope then, and for beauty. They’re here for fairly expensive investments in themselves.” He drew some dollar signs.

“They want to improve their looks. They are willing to spend a lot of money. They understand already that dentistry is a part of that. And they want to totally trust this guy; to believe in this guy; to invest in this guy. To enjoy the adventure,” he kept sketching.

“Basically, they’re here to change their lives. They’re here to buy a positive, life changing experience.”

Livingstone doodled down to the essence of the dental clients’ needs and what he found was that on a foundation of trust, professionalism, safety and excellence were a desire for a unique experience and certainty that they were in the right place to invest in themselves and their future to change their lives.

The sketches almost filled an art book and by the time he had been through the full creative process more than 30 images, sculptures, models and watercolours described a new frontier in dental architecture – a frontier with fins.

Livingstone drew dozens of massive fin-like forms inspired by the graceful lines of teeth and faces to be used as sculptural features in the practice. As interior affects they would create an artful
ease, confidence, flow and drama in what other practices would call a ‘waiting room’, and as beautiful, impressive signatures for Surgery design & construction the new practice from the street (where they can be seen illuminated gracefully at dusk) the ‘fins’ would be a dynamic marketing asset – a retail designer’s BINGO!

The commissioning dentist could see the vision. Fifty toothand- bite inspired laser-cut acrylic blades standing three metres tall and lit from below were ordered for delivery. In Livingstone’s floorplan the ‘waiting room’ flows into a ‘reception’ using seamless Marbello to create large monolithic forms inside floor-to-ceiling worked glass.

“We wanted the reception to appear to float,” he says, adding to the art-effect. The surgeon himself took the lead in designing each surgery,

“We had the big-picture vision and the client was extremely skilled at fine detail and precision. It was easy to fill in the rest of the design using his experience and our skills at listening and application.”

In six months the practice was fully equipped and open.

“It’s one of the projects I’m most excited about,” says Livingstone. “It really does look incredible.”