Hasta La Ideas

The tree-like sculptures growing out of the tables in this canteen by Spanish architects Estudio Nômada are meant to remind diners of eating outdoors.

The studio drew on the culture and traditions of Galicia in north-west Spain to design the museum shop and canteen for Peter Eisenman’s Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

The legs of the dining tables in the canteen area extend upwards to form stylised trees, which have an aluminium frame beneath the oak exterior and can incorporate additional lighting.

“The idea behind the trees was to evoke, through a contemporary language, the gatherings of people during rural summer festivities,” Enrique de Santiago of Estudio Nômada told Dezeen. “To shelter from the sun these types of celebrations take place under the trees’ shade along long tables, so we designed the tables by elongating their feet into branches.”

Site plan – click above for larger image

The museum shop next door features tall wooden shelving that can be adjusted to accommodate all potential products on sale. The two spaces are linked by apertures carved into the dividing wall and unified by a long counter tiled in the architects’ interpretation of “rural Galician façades along the coastline, like for example the tiled façades at the village of Corrubedo.”

Floor plan – click above for larger image

Completed in 2010, the Cidade da Cultura de Galicia incorporates a museum, library, archive facility, arts centre and performing arts centre, surrounded by 25 hectares of parkland. You can read our earlier story about the Cidade da Cultura de Galicia here.

Diagram of tree construction – click above for larger image

Photographs are by Santos-Diez/BISimages

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Estudio Nômada appeared first on Dezeen.

Freelance writers and journalists can work for as long as they want without being pestered by waiting staff at this black and white Parisian cafe by local design studio POOL.

Designed for professionals who don’t have a permanent office, Cafe Craft lets customers use the internet and power points while they work but doesn’t force them to continually order food and drink for the privilege.

“We chose black and white for the walls to highlight the architectural lines, staying mostly neutral so not to disturb the studious atmosphere,” designers Léa Padovani and Sébastien Kieffer told Dezeen. “We added yellow and brass details to blur the border between cosy cafe and workshop.”

Different floor materials denote the three areas of the cafe: speckled terrazzo is laid in the entrance, the serving area is surrounded by chequerboard tiles and herringbone parquet is used in the workspace area at the rear of the cafe.

Most of the furniture was designed or customised specifically for the cafe and is arranged to create a variety of working environments, such as the twelve-seat table in the middle of the workspace for collaborative work.

Noticeboards and shelves hang from a wall-mounted wire trellis, which also functions as a screen to separate seating areas.

The cafe is situated close to the Canal Saint-Martin, in an area with a large population of freelance writers, journalists and creative professionals.

Photography is by Samuel Kirszenbaum.

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Here is some more information from Pool:

Design by POOL

POOL realized the graphic identity, interior design and most of the furniture of Craft. This is the first 360-degree project for the young studio founded in 2010 by Lea Padovani and Sebastien Kieffer. Dominated by the contrast of black and white, their project graphically highlights the architectural lines and plays on alternating floors to signify the various spaces, without hurting the depth of vision. Between diversion and refinement, noble and industrial materials, apparent mounting and precious finish, POOL expresses its dual style and writes a usage scenario faithfulto the spirit of the café.

Markings

Craft combines the visual codes of a coffee shop, an office and an apartment to give the space the shape of an ideal library. To materialize this ubiquity without betraying the unity of the place, POOL imagined three distinct floor areas and combined three materials rarely associated with each other.

Terrazzo

The place opens on a white-flecked black Terrazzo floor, a material often used in the mass catering universe. This is one of many winks sown by POOL as references to the imaginary of craft or industrial worlds. To complete the design, POOL added to the entrance a supported suspension light, which hangs over a conventional arrangement of tables.

Black and white tiles

Is the diamond shape POOL’s signature? Their first objects and projects were indeed giving hints in that direction, this project is confirming it. In a very subtle way, diamonds are present in the chevron-shaped junction between the terrazzo and the black-andwhite-checkered floor, which is a key feature in the imaginary of Parisian cafés. So is the alternating tiles motif on the baseboard around the counter, the second core area. Around it, apparently-pinned wooden stools are ennobled with a large brushed-brass handle to move them around easily. Thus, as it is often the case in furniture designed by POOL, the functional element becomes ornament; and so is the switch of the Vulcan lights, aligned on the large work table.

Herringbone parquet

Another chevron-shaped transition marks the junction between the checkered-tiles floor and the herringbone parquet, an implicit reference to the Haussmann-styled Parisian apartments. This area is split between the large coworking table and a lounge separated from the rest of the space by a metal trellis. Behind it, deep wooden benches covered with three-colored fabrics, mismatched coffee tables and a few ferns create a versatile environment suited both for focused meetings or total relaxation..

Community Table

At the heart of the concept, the large worktable embodies Craft’s identity. It provides clients with 12 comfortable workstations, from which they can freely use power outlets and Ethernet cables. The wooden apparent mounting of the base winks at the workshop while its composite material top surface refers to mass catering. Although from rustic inspiration, its details unveil unexpected sophistication, a duality that runs throughout the project and which characterizes the style POOL

Weft

Altogether separation element and wall decoration, the trellis frames echo the tile floor and offer a wide surface of expression. Halfway between a notebook page and a Facebook profile, it can bring together pictures, magazines, ads, menus and all sorts of information that calls to and stimulate the imagination of Craft’s regulars.

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by POOL appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival: designer-makers East London Furniture have temporarily fitted out the interior of London bar DreamBags-JaguarShoes using nothing but scrap materials found on the local streets.

The fit-out is the latest in a string of installations at the venue by artists and designers. ”Normally it involves mostly the walls and perhaps some lighting,” East London Furniture’s Christian Dillon told Dezeen. ”We wanted to take over the whole bar.”

The team removed all the furniture and replaced it with tables made from pallets and ceiling joists, plus benches inspired by nineteenth century Shaker furniture.

“We created all of the free-standing seating, tables and lighting in our workshop, but left the inbuilt elements to be created in situ,” said Dillon. “So much of the inbuilt seating, especially the booth or ‘pulpit’, were conceived in the space from materials we had to hand.”

The team have lined the walls and front of the counter with wooden panels, while the throne-like seating booth is made from old skirting boards and fills the recess beside a staircase.

The cube-shaped lights hanging above the bar were created from the offcuts of other furniture made by the team and the wall-mounted lighting was produced from recycled wooden blocks.

Friend and regular collaborator Alessandro Mistrulli has decorated many of the surfaces with illustrations showing severed arms and wood-working tools. “I think I saw him reading a book on Russian prison tattoos the night before he delivered the main graphic,” said Dillon.

The installation will remain in place for two months, but was completed to coincide with the London Design Festival last week.

“For us to have a show in the festival, where people are actually using the furniture to have a nice meal, a nice beer or chatting to a nice girl or guy is so much more interesting than a static display of our furniture,” explained Dillon.

Dillon and team mates Ben Green and Reuben Le Prevost founded the Hackney-based furniture company in 2011 – see our earlier story about them here.

A past installation we’ve featured at DreamBags-JaguarShoes featured wallpaper that changes under different lighting conditions.

See more stories about the London Design Festival »

Photography is by Jeff Metal, courtesy of JaguarShoes Collective.

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at DreamBags JaguarShoes appeared first on Dezeen.

Sheets of tarpaulin roll up to reveal shelves for pots and condiments at a Seoul restaurant inspired by street food stalls by Lim Tae Hee Design Studio (+ slideshow).

Play Pot is a ‘boonsik’ restaurant offering the kind of small Korean snacks that are usually sold on the streets.

The tarpaulin on the walls mimics the tented coverings of temporary food stalls, with some sheets rolled up and tied while others are zipped shut.

Yellow and white material pinned to the ceiling also references the striped fabric of these tented canopies, while more stripes appear on the restaurant’s facade.

Cupboards painted in shades of purple and green form the base of the kitchen counter and potted flowers are dotted around between the wooden tables and chairs.

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Photographs are by Park Youngchae.

Here’s some more information from Lim Tae Hee Design Studio:

Play Pot is a Boonsik restaurant. Boonsik is a term used to refer to inexpensive Korean snacks easily found on Pojangmacha. (food vendor). The main idea behind Play Pot is ‘super luxury food vendor’: taking the favorites of what you love from the street and giving them a gourmet twist, while still keeping the accessibilty, inexpensive prices and customer service like a regular food chain.

By looking at the place, Play Pot brings the outside space into the interior space of the restaurant, creating a space within the space. The design took inspiration from pojangmacha (food vendors) which, although usually located in the middle of the street, are inviting spaces.

Play Pot’s sensibility was designed so that the interior space looks like exterior, breaking down the invisible barrier between exterior and interior space. The use of metaphorical road signs was an attempt to hint at this.

Plan – click above for larger image

From studying pojangmacha, the material and tarpaulin played a significant role. Tarpaulin is a heavy duty water proof cloth usually made with plastic. It is commonly used in normal food vendors in Korea. The material in itself has the quality of opacity that allows light to come through. This creates more interesting atmosphere than that of daytime, creating twilight or warm night time.

Tarpaulin wall – click above for larger image

Pojangmacha has its own merits and own culture. Zippers are used to make windows out of tarpaulin tents, or the rims were rolled up to make an entrance. Play Pot was a project that stimulates nostalgia, familiarity and recreates its own culture.

Facade – click above for larger image

Location: Bangbae dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, Korea
Area: 77.62 sq.m.
Function and purpose : Boonsik restaurant
Materials: Exposed concrete, paint finish, plywood, tarpaulin
Design time: April – June 2012
Date of completion: June 2012
Designer: Lim, Taehee
Design team: Lim Tae Hee design studio
Construction company: Jo, Woogon
Collaboration Artist: U.JA design lab

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Lim Tae Hee Design Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

Rows of interchangeable tiles spell out what’s on the menu at this fast-food pasta outlet in Tel Aviv, designed by Studio OPA as a “tribute to Scrabble”.

The tiled menu board above the kitchen and counter is made from oak and bent tin.

With only 35 square metres of space to be utilised, Studio OPA solved the problem of storage by placing items from the kitchen on display shelves in the dining area.

Green, grey and black patterned tiles decorate the wall near the window.

The glazed facade provides continuity with the green and white seating outdoors.

We previously featured another Tel Aviv restaurant by Studio OPA – a pop-art pizzeria with soup cans covering the walls.

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Photographs are by Yoav Gurin.

Here’s some more information from Studio OPA:

Avanti – fast food pasta

Located in the centre of Tel Aviv, Avanti is an extra-small space of only 35 sq. m. including the kitchen, the counter and the dining area.

The lack of storage space resulted in us having to display the kitchen products to all. The display was made of a bent 4 mm tin.

Made of oak tree and bent tin, the menu board is a tribute to Scrabble and was built with the idea of having the flexibility to change every day according to the chef’s wishes.

A square wall made of coloured tiles is a homage to a classic Italian restaurant.

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by Studio OPA appeared first on Dezeen.