Hasta La Ideas

Jars of tea and second-hand books are separated in stacked wooden cubes at a Taipei teahouse.

Designed by Swiss-Danish designer Carsten Jörgensen for Taiwanese tea brand smith&hsu, the two-storey teahouse has product displays and wooden furniture on the ground floor, while a dining room occupies the floor above.

The wooden display boxes downstairs are arranged into grids along one wall, with some suspended from the ceiling.

Upstairs, the cubes line every wall and are diagonally staggered with gaps in between.

See some more interesting teahouses on Dezeen, including one made of cardboard by Shigeru Ban, by following this link.

The following text is from smith&hsu:

smith&hsu Tea House, Where Tea and Design Meet.

smith&hsu is a contemporary tea brand based in Taiwan. Its premium loose teas, collected from around the world, are a testament to its deep passion for both Chinese and British tea culture. Beside its carefully assorted tea collection, smith&hsu offers a wide range of beautifully designed tea tools and homemade gourmet food.

smith&hsu’s teahouse on Nan Jing East Road in Taipei is the 5th and latest addition to the brand. Envisioned by Swiss / Danish designer Carsten Jörgensen, the new teahouse has two floors seating 48 guests in the upper dining area and 10 guests in the spacious lower tea shop. It carries minimalistic tea tools exclusively created for smith&hsu and its outstanding teas.

The wood and concrete interior feels authentic. The materials chosen for the store reflect the subtlety of a great tea and trigger the guests’ aesthetic sensibility. In keeping with modernistic principles of visual clarity and simplicity, Carsten Jörgensen has created a wonderful framework for experiencing quality teas. The teahouse’s ascetic yet warm charm has a calming effect even after one of those long and stressful days.

As an extension of the design for the previous smith&hsu teahouses, the key elements of the new store are “soil” and “wood”. The store’s concrete surfaces display a subtle spectrum of grayish, bluish, yellowish and brownish colors.

Concrete walls and floors add an earthy feel, whereas the wood gives the store a sense of organic warmth. All the materials smith&hsu has used for the teahouse feel refreshingly raw and uncluttered.

The cubic wooden tables, counters and shelves are simple and unpretentious. On the first floor, Y Chairs by Hans J. Wegner and on the second floor, Eames Plastic Side Chairs by Charles & Ray Eames complement each other and the cubic furniture well. Both are epitomes of the “designer chair” and both are exceptionally beautiful.

The sensuousness expressed in the Eames chair, its elegance and comfort, seems to have made it a perfect match for smith&hsu. Moreover, the inclusion of these two iconic chairs is a sure sign of the brand’s desire to bring only the best to its customers.

Bookshelves made of piles of wooden cubes run around the walls of the entire second floor, creating an open library for smith&hsu’s guests. The books come from the customers themselves and from a few generous donors. The tea and the books, the concrete and the wood somehow all make sense together in this great looking new teahouse.

smith&hsu has managed to combine asceticism with homeliness and the result is best described as something akin to wisdom.

Designer: Carsten Jörgensen
Area: 172 sqm
Completed Time: May, 2011

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WUHAO @ The Teahouse	Book and Coffeeshop in Madrid by MYCC	Konjaku-an by Inly Design

This Barcelona cafe looks more like a warehouse, with everything from sofas to fridges housed within tall shelving units.

The Fastvinic cafe, by interior designer Alfons Tost, also accommodates a bar, televisions, storage boxes and potted plants on its full-height shelves.

A glazed wall encloses the cafe kitchen so that customers can see their sandwiches being prepared.

Bathrooms are located in the basement and feature washbasins shaped like shopping baskets.

Other interesting Barcelona eateries include a cafe with a bar under the stairs and a cocktail bar made of doors with a door made of cupboards.

Photography is by Eugeni Pons.

Here’s some more information from Tost:

Fastvinic was born as a environmental and sustainable project, as well as getting a functional and defuse space where the client could flow around the space enjoying the self-service concept.

The space has two levels, the ground floor with kitchen and dinning-room and the underground with bathrooms and service office.

On the ground floor we find a perimetral element, a “mecano shelves” resoling the requirements of each space; sits on the dinning-room, bar on the corridor, support for the wine and recycling machines and the higher part of the shelves that are supporting the plants referring the compromise with the nature and helping the regeneration of the oxygen.

All the elements are designed to be recycled and dismantled.

The kitchen, located on the entrance it´s been designed as a domestic space because of the colors and the materials, and has the intention to work like a window-shopping where the client before choose the menu could enjoy watching the domestic process of the kitchen.

On the underground, we find two big elements covered with pine wood making the service areas.

We find the sustainability in all the levels; on the materials, eco, woods FSC (from under control forest), adhesive free of volatile carcinogenic… we recover all the grey water of the energetic waste.

All the lighting of the space is with Leeds, electrical appliance… even the final product that we serve to the client. The packaging is also 100% compostable.

The graphic design of Dani Buch and Judit Prat are “human-ingredients” with Catalan attitudes (showing him selves as a “sardanes” and “castellers”), claiming the Km 0 concept: proximity of the product.

Interior Designer: Alfons Tost Interiorisme (Alfons Tost)

Contributors: Montse Hernando, Isabel Figueras, Mariona Espinet i Cristina Cirera.

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Hatched by Outofstock	Rosa’s by Gundry & Ducker	Restaurant Praq by Tjep

Paris studio 1024 Architecture have completed a cafe made from scaffolding and shipping containers on an island on the Seine in Paris.

Les Grandes Tables is located on the Île Seguin, where architect Jean Nouvel is currently converting a car factory into a museum.

Elevated amidst the scaffolding structure is an oriented strand board box, which houses the first floor restaurant.

A staircase at the front of the building leads visitors up to this dining room, whilst an open space below is used for informal events and parties.

Another scaffolding structure published on Dezeen temporarily housed a temporary cafe, sauna and paddling pool – see our earlier story here.

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

Photography is by Brice Pelleschi, apart from where otherwise stated.

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

Here’s some more details from 1024 Architecture:

Les Grandes Tables de L’île

A restaurant/bar/open-air café positioned on Île Seguin in the middle of a temporary garden whilst waiting for the architect Jean Nouvel’s macro project to be implemented, Les Grandes Tables de L’ile is a place to meet, for haute cuisine and why not even parties to accompany the reconstruction of this island steeped in history.

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

The project is an architectural hybridization between an agricultural greenhouse, a barge and a timber-frame house.

Modelled after a large wood fibre box suspended in a scaffold structure from which freight containers are hanging, all encompassed beneath a transparent umbrella…

An eye-catching iconoclastic assemblage with an area of 300m2 to accommodate 120 covers and the cuisine of Arnaud Daguin, a chef with stars to his name.

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

Constructed from scaffolding, wood fibre panels and containers, according to the principle dear to the 1024 duo, the restaurant can be promptly extended by video and lighting effects by changing with the assistance of mapping for the duration of a party or a particular event.

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

‘A meeting place aimed at initiating the reoccupation of the venue.

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

An architecture which must be able to disappear without leaving any traces…’

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

Client: Les Grandes Tables (Paris/Ile Seguin)
Team: Pierre Schneider and François Wunscel (Architects) / Stéphanie Grimard (project monitoring)

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

Companies: SIRC (containers and construction) / PLETAC (scaffolding) / Light-Event (Electricity) / RECYCLING (interior lights) / ABAC (heating and CMV)

Above: photograph is by C. Sancereau

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Southwark Lido by EXYZT and Sara Muzio	Chin Chin Laboratorists by Akram and Haythornthwaite	Motel Out of The Blue by Dros and Lombarts

Vienna Design Week 2011: London designers PostlerFerguson have created a temporary Viennese coffee house for Vienna Design Week, which continues until Sunday.

They designed all the furniture to be flat-packed and flown to Vienna from their London studio, then slotted together on site.

Dark furniture and golden, reflective panels reference the opulence of traditional cafes on a temporary scale.

Cafe Sonja was one of five Carte Blanche projects at Vienna Deign Week, which invites designers to create urban scenarios in forgotten spaces.

See all our stories about Vienna Design Week here and all our stories about PostlerFerguson here.

Here are some more details from PostlerFerguson:

Cafe Sonja is a temporary cafe we designed for the 2011 Vienna Design Week in the second district of Vienna. Drawing on the unique aesthetics and feel of the traditional Viennese coffee house we designed a space which uses dark colours, complex, interlocking structures and high reflective gold surfaces to create an almost Brothers Grimm like atmosphere.

All furniture and fittings where produced by us in London, flat-packed and flown to Vienna where we set up the Cafe within 3 days.

Cafe Sonja welcomes guests from the 29.09.2011 until 10.10.2011 and operated by the legendary Cafe Drechsler.

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Zmianatematu by xm3	Café Coutume by Cut Architectures	Café/day by Suppose Design Office

Swirling clouds of drumsticks cover the ceiling of a Los Angeles noodle restaurant by Japanese architects SWeeT.

The 2500 wooden sticks are each cut to different lengths to create the cloud patterns at Tsujita LA.

Wavy-edged tiles give the interior walls the appearance of a woven basket, while plain clay tiles surround an open kitchen.

The dining room features leather sofas, timber chairs and cylindrical lamps.

Rectangular lanterns decorated with the restaurant’s flower motif fill the shelves of a timber bookshelf at the entrance.

Other restaurants with textured ceilings to have been featured on Dezeen include one where curved walls are lined with wooden blocks coated in gold leaf, and another with an undulating cave-like ceiling.

Photography by Takeshi Nakasa.

The following text is from SWeeT:

Tsujita LA
2057 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles

I put 25000 of wooden sticks, which was shaped like drum stick on the ceiling.

In order to increase a reality of clouds, I calculate the focal length between eye line and wooden sticks and use that length for the stick length.

Also I made difference on the distance between stick each other so that to make a stereoscopic effect to wooden cloud.

Not only for this project. I’m always challenging to create a space that coexist art and interior.

At the same time, I’d like people to feel the delicate of beauty, which Japanese have, and Japanese atmosphere when they visit here so that they will think that they want to visit Japan.

I’d like to make this restaurant as one of an element for Japanese reconstruction.

Click above for larger image.

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Kurogane by Maker	Silencio by David Lynch	Tree Restaurant by Koichi Takada Architects