Material girl

Hetta Johnson, the design force behind some of the areas quirkiest drinking haunts, tells Victoria Purcell about her latest lofty project in Tooting

Above: Balham Bowls Club

Among the dust, rubble and eclectic collection of discarded coffee cups and burger wrappers in the vast emptiness that is currently the Tramshed, I found interior designer Hetta Johnson somewhat incongruously dressed in a smart black polo neck and pencil skirt with heels. Only the industrial strength rubber band holding back her hair gave her away as the paced the venue-to-be, eagerly awaiting the arrival of six chandeliers.

Unsurprisingly, the venue was once the resting place of trams, boasting warehouse proportions with a glass roof and tile-clad walls. Suffering a spell as a pub catering to rowdy young drinkers with cheap drinks, average food and dirty toilets, the place acquired a bad rep that Hetta and bar management group Antic intend to rapidly shake off.

Hetta’s background in textiles and fashion has seen her lend her skills to the stage as a costume and set designer, and to a number of local watering holes including Balham Bowls Club, The Dogstar in Brixton, Westow House in Crystal Palace and now the Tramshed in Tooting: "This place has a lot of different practical issues; it’s vast, there’s a lot of tiling and it’s cold. It’s basically cosying up a tram shed."

We perch on a couple of dusty stools as she puts her vision for the bar-come-restaurant-come-gig spot into words: "The plan is to restyle the whole thing to bring out some of the beauty of the original building and make it lush with things like velvet banquettes against the tiles.

"We want to try and keep the utilitarian nature of the building juxtaposed with textiles, fabric and odds and sods without making it too perfect or hiding the skeleton of it. We’re going to have some enormous curtains on either side of the doors, fabric on the walls, fabric on the ceiling, little cosy areas, a big space in the middle and then lots of little details." And the colour scheme? "We’re going for the dark obviously and I wanted to keep the palate quite simple with lots of silvers, golds and creams."

Asked to describe her style she wrinkles her nose in distain at the "thrift shop boutique chic" label she has acquired, instead launching into her own jumbled definition: "It’s all bought from markets; old stuff juxtaposed with new stuff. It’s about comfort and eccentricity, an Englishness that you recognise with things that are odd and quirky. I want to make it a really lovely place to stay."

Comparing the Tramshed to Balham Bowls Club, it’s clear that Hetta has had a great time fixing them both up: "They’re both in this area, they both have a strong character and they’re period buildings. Balham Bowls was all wood panelling and everything was old fashioned with a real sense of being an old gents’ club. We had the run of the whole building and all the goodies left behind like score cards and the names of the old teams. We don’t have any of that stuff here. There’s nothing. The history’s not in the building, it’s in the structure."

The Dogstar is another of Hetta’s textile-adorned projects. "The idea," she said "was to combine the strong Victorian element of the pub with the Caribbean element of Brixton. We used a lot of fabric hung with pelmets, lots of velvets and drapes, the ceiling was hung with muslin and we used tie-dye fabrics for lampshades."

With such an emphasis on textiles and warmth, does this mean the trend for stark minimalism has passed? "There seems to be a movement away from minimalism," explained Hetta "but also a backlash against too obvious an approach to lush decoration. That’s why you’ve had a more discerning approach to design lately, things are simpler and the proportions are really good. That to me is sort of 50s/60s/70s design and a move away from plush baroque. But ultra minimalism will always exist in bars because of the association with glamour."

As we take a quick spin around the venue up to the mezzanine, the much coveted chandeliers arrive. A notably distracted Hetta continues pointing out various aspects of her project; where the dumb waiter will sit, the strips of carpet that will remain, where the stage will be and, most importantly, that the chandeliers will hang at eye level from where we are standing. Clearly she’s a fan of such elaborate lighting: "I am. I’m not very minimal. I love it when different things work well together. It’s the identity that a lot of the pubs want – a place that’s more sitting roomy and a bit worn out. I guess the idea is for people to hang around buying drinks, but I like to think they just want to sit there."