Flying Colours 'Naughty Corner' is a installation designed in collaboration with architects Marc & Co for this much-loved West End venue. An initial brief to activate an underutilised part of the venue evolved into something more substantial: a room within a room, occupying residual space and giving the corner its own identity and atmosphere.

The key design constraint was reversibility. Hospitality fit-outs often have a much shorter lifespan than the materials used to construct them, so the installation was designed to be fully disassembled without destroying the value or future usefulness of its components.

Following a visit to the Five Mile Radius workshop, unused pallet racking was identified as a component that could become the backbone of the installation. Through full-scale mock-ups, fabrication studies and material testing in our workshop, the project developed around what was already available.

The pallet racking was combined with reclaimed plywood from decommissioned pallets and Ampelite offcuts, both sourced from North Brisbane. The racking became the structure for the platform, seating and enclosure, while translucent Ampelite forms a lightweight boundary that allows light and silhouettes through. Integrated lighting casts across the surface, shifting the atmosphere of the space.

The system is fully disassemblable and salvageable in components. The pallet racking remains unaltered and can return to its original use at the end of the installation’s life.

Marc & Co brought a strong architectural vision to the project. Five Mile Radius embedded circular material thinking, sourcing, prototyping, fabrication knowledge and detailed resolution into that vision.

The workshop delivered some climate wins we're particularly proud of. Around 95% of material by mass was reused, retaining 0.88 tonnes of material in use and potentially avoiding 3.91 tCO₂e of new-material production. The reclaimed materials were sourced within 25km of the site, and the build is fully disassemblable and salvageable in components.

A note on the carbon calculations: the 3.91 tCO₂e figure compares reused materials with equivalent new-material production using EPiC Database 2024. It does not represent the project’s total embodied carbon and excludes transport, cleaning, fabrication, installation and new finishes.

Images by Callie Marshall (day time photos) and Toby Scott (night time photos).