Half way up Union St in the centre of Aberdeen is The Langstane Kirk designed by James Matthews in 1869 in the Gothic style. In recent years having faced dereliction, this ex-church has received a new lease of life at ground floor level as the highly successful ‘Soul’ bar, and more recently, the separated upper gallery, as the stunning Soul casino.

Room ID, based in Edinburgh, were approached to tender for the job of designing the interior of Soul Casino and to work alongside their technical design team in creating an all round design. Our original remit, was to take the existing scheme of the Soul bar to ‘the next level’, to add glamour, impact and wow factor.

Soul’s (the bar) scheme is predominantly taupe and brown with minor accents of red..

I decided to retain the taupe wall colour as per the bar below for the walls only and massively increase the amount of red included elsewhere in the scheme. The red was used to great effect in the curtain fabric used to drape the twelve 5m high arched side windows. You will not see windows in a purpose built casino, therefore dealing with the inclusion of fourteen enormous windows threw in quite a challenge. We opted for luxurious red and brown acetate to curtain each of the twelve side windows. The fabric dampened the acoustics of the vast space affording a more intimate atmosphere, whilst allowing black-out to the windows in the very light summer months. Careful attention was given to the shape of the pelmets, as the archways of the windows’ architecture would have been completely lost without the archway being reflected in the fabric pelmets’ shape.

The vaulted roof is supported by an inner structure supported by pillars and archways reflecting those of the windows. These we carefully lit, again providing texture/shadow and light. We mirrored this play with texture and shadow with the material used beneath all bar areas and the entrance doors. We washed the Marotte panels with red light as per the bar below to retain a connection with Soul, the bar.

The red perspex and brown silk chandelier which hangs down the entire stair well provides interest and anticipation of the drama to come on entering the casino hall. We covered very unattractive arched inserts in the entrance staircase with hand made antiqued mirror paneling that when lit with candles, throw red light and shadows around the entrance area which also invokes a feeling of the antiquity of the building.

The huge vaulted ceilings cried out for chandeliers to make the eye realise what a vast ceiling it was and so I designed three huge three-tiered red silk chandeliers with brown perspex droplets.

These chandeliers offered general light and design interest to the gaming hall, but did not afford the level of light required to comply with gaming restrictions. We acquired the correct level of light by introducing floor standing standard lamps. These also accommodated the security cameras which we obviously couldn’t accommodate in the ceiling as per conventional casinos.In future these standard lamps and the gaming tables offer a flexibility to be moved around to cater to current gaming favourites.

Throughout the casino are modern references to the fabric of the original church’s design features. The red perspex handles, the perspex droplets from the chandeliers, the perspex from the curtains’ tie backs, the crackled glass of the balustrade leading to the rest rooms / the antiqued mirrored glass in the entrance archways. These were all designed as a modern play and reference to the existing stain glass of the fourteen windows of the, as was, Langstane Kirk.

The design was not without its complications, not least because the Langstane Kirk is a listed ancient monument. We feel we have been able to utilise all the listed building restrictions to our advantage, for example the original organ was to be retained within the building. We have adorned the walls each side of the 8m high North stain glass window with the original organ pipes. These we painted bronze and carefully lit to provide texture and interest as a decorative feature.

Also the lower level bar had to retain the original pulpit which dictated a raised floor level for the casino floor above at the far end of the gaming hall. We increased the floor area in which the floor was raised and made this the Punto Banco table. This raised feature draws the eye towards the back of the hall and is beautifully framed by the stained glass rose window. As the Punto Banco is a large crowd puller, we designed a barrier which can be leant against with your elbows at the lower level or leant against with your lower back at the higher level.

Ultimately we have been led by the strict symmetry of the Gothic architecture and feel we have adhered to these rules to great affect.