Does the name Michael Patroni ring any bells?

Even if you aren’t familiar with the Fremantle-based architect and founder of architecture firm spaceagency, it’s likely that you’ve enjoyed yourself somewhere he’s had a hand in designing. At least if you’ve gone out for a drink or meal anywhere in Perth over the last 40 years, anyway.

Ever raised a middy at The Brass Monkey or The Queens? Both are among the earliest examples of the new-old Perth pub genre that Patroni pioneered.

Multipurpose venues that blur the line between genres are another spaceagency signature: think destinations such as the Petition trilogy at State Buildings (and indeed the entire State Buildings precinct) plus Fremantle’s Strange Company.

In the last decade, team spaceagency has also branched out into accommodation with Alex Hotel (Northbridge), The Premier Mill Hotel (Katanning) and Farmers Home Hotel (Northam) among its finished projects.

These venues – and plenty more besides – will form the backbone of A Space Odyssey: 40 Years of spaceagency: a conversation featuring Patroni and fellow director Dimmity Walker as part of this year’s Fremantle Design Week program.

In addition to discussions on the value of design, the event will feature the screening of a short film celebrating the firm’s 40-year milestone

While Patroni isn’t exactly sure how many hospitality projects he’s worked on over his career (he estimates the count to be close to a hundred) he remembers the first: helping transform the Freemason Hotel in Fremantle into the Sail and Anchor in 1984. As far as Australian beer history goes, the Sail and Anchor was revolutionary and is regarded by many as Australia’s oldest pub-brewery, as well as ground zero for Australia’s craft beer renaissance.

For a then 20-something-year-old Patroni, the project was also a springboard for an illustrious career and the first of many collaborations with Phil Sexton and Gary Gossati, two of the drivers behind Sail and Anchor.

“It was a bunch of beautiful coincidences,” says Patroni who set up his first “proper” office upstairs at the Sail and Anchor.

“In those early years, they opened a series of venues that were momentous and real game-changers. There were real parallels between their ambitions and my ambitions. It was great.”

Although many of these early collaborations were pubs, food became a bigger part of the venues Patroni was working on as well as WA’s hospitality landscape.

“These new venues had a different setting where people would mingle and sit in a very different manner to a pub,” Patroni says.

“The furnishings were more akin to people sitting at tables rather than mingling at the bar, which is what happens at pubs.”

One of the real landmark moments was the 1990 arrival of 44 King Street, Sexton’s ground-breaking cafe, restaurant and providore that brought an all-day European sensibility to the CBD.

44 King Street was also instrumental in establishing cafe culture in Perth’s (it had its own coffee roaster) and was among the first places to feature an open kitchen: a carry-over, says Patroni, of his experience designing breweries.

“One of the ideas of the brewery was that you could see what was being made,” says Patroni.

“It was this great belief in the authenticity of what you were making and we wanted that idea to carry through to an open kitchen.

“We wanted to celebrate this idea that what you were doing was to be seen and to be proud of it, and for the people who were cooking your food to be part of this open theatre.”

Although the eight architects at spaceagency don’t design according to a house style, certain throughlines connect the firm’s projects. Key among these is an interest in refurbishing and reusing existing buildings. (Beachside bar Al Lupo is one of spaceagency’s few projects that was a new build.)

One reason for this approach is that upcycling spaces makes use of existing resources. Another is that having history and a backstory to lean on makes it easier to design a venue with a true sense of place.

“A venue has to have authenticity, whether it’s the design of the venue or the food that it’s doing,” Patroni says.

“They’re the things that I find endearing about hospitality and ensure that it isn’t just a performance. They’re the sorts of things that give a hospitality venue legs and help it last beyond a couple of years.”

After four decades of helping shape WA’s hospitality scene, spaceagency doesn’t look like it’s slowing down anytime soon. The firm’s current projects include the restoration of the Margaret River Hotel as well as preparing Fremantle’s former P&O Hotel – home to the quirky Greco-themed bar and dining Ode to Sirens – for the next phase of its life.

A Space Odyssey: 40 years of spaceagency is on Saturday October 19 at PS Art Space. Tickets are available online. Fremantle Design Week runs from October 18 to 25.

fremantledesignweek.com