Hasta La Ideas

London studio Blacksheep have completed a pizzeria for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver where a cinema listings board displays the menu and diners can watch chefs at work on vintage televisions.

Located in the Renzo-Piano-designed Central St. Giles Building in London, the Union Jacks restaurant has a brightly coloured neon sign inside that is visible through the glazed facade.

The two-storey restaurant also features retro-inspired chairs, as well as leather seating booths lit by glass pendant lamps.

Perforated panels line walls on both floors, providing places to affix shelf hinges and signage.

Blacksheep have completed a number of restaurant and bar interiors – click here to see a restaurant they designed with interactive projections on the tables.

Here’s some more information from Blacksheep:

Award winning design agency Blacksheep unveils Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant concept, Union Jacks

Blacksheep, one of the UK’s leading creative agencies, unveils the design of its latest project, Union Jacks, part of a continuing partnership with renowned British chef, Jamie Oliver. The new restaurant concept, located in the heart of London in Central St Giles, is the sixth project that Blacksheep has completed with Jamie Oliver, following a successful rollout of his first restaurant chain, Jamie’s Italian.

Union Jacks, situated in the iconic Lego building designed by architect, Renzo Piano, takes diners through a journey of discovery through Britain using familiar flavours, cooked and presented the Union Jacks way. The incredible flatbreads and wood-fired cooking methods nod to traditions that are universally loved and nearly all of the toppings are local. Setting the flatbreads apart from the array of other options on offer in Britain’s high street restaurant chains is Oliver’s partnership with US ‘pizza master’, Chris Bianco, widely credited as ‘the man who perfected dough’. It is a union of ideas, traditions and of people.

Blacksheep was brought on board once again to create a design concept that would take the Union Jacks experience countrywide. The design agency’s creative approach was to encompass the look and feel of the principle elements of the restaurant: service, food, theatre and ambiance. The agency worked hand-in-hand with Jamie. His love of British culture and heritage and his enthusiasm for encouraging the nation to eat better was a central theme for the interior design of the project.

Jo Sampson, Creative Director of Blacksheep, comments: “When working with Jamie, as with all our clients, we try and capture ‘him’, not a pastiche of his character or the best bits -simply his genuine spirit and honest approach to food and wider ethical concerns, and that is what is emulated in the design of Union Jacks.”

The spirit of Britishness is celebrated throughout Union Jacks; the food, the drink and the design are all underpinned by strong family values. There is a nod to yesteryear and subtle references to post-war nostalgia, including beralware-inspired plates with a cheeky twist that, when turned over, read “stop looking at my bottom”.



Above the bar and work station, a graphic neon multicoloured ‘Union Jacks’ sign sits above a large vintage cinema style board that displays the menu and specials.

The colour palette combines muted blue, brown, grey and pink with primary brights. Objects collected by Jamie on his travels inspired the space and retro elements that appear to be found trinkets have been made bespoke by Blacksheep and are dotted around the restaurant. Knitted 1970’s style tea cosies are found on the teapots on the café tables outside.

Graph paper is printed on counter tables, stools are reminiscent of a school science lab, while simple ‘wash-top’ wooden tables and chairs with basic metal frames are used elsewhere throughout the restaurant.

The lower ground floor is an intimate space with tables in booth settings. Antique TV screens are linked to cameras in the kitchen so diners can view the chefs at work. Bold graphics are painted on the walls and the menu uses old-school typewriter font.

Blacksheep’s biggest challenge was working within the existing building that would house the first Union Jacks restaurant. Specific guidelines had to be followed; the glass walls surrounding the space could not be covered so passers-by could see through it completely at any ground level vantage point. Blacksheep’s solution came in the form of a ‘canvas’ of three internal walls built to surround a central lift shaft. These walls were designed to act as a backdrop to working areas, and to house the wood-fired ovens, creating a visual experience for the diner.

The Union Jacks design is the result of Blacksheep rising to Jamie Oliver’s challenge seamlessly integrating his personal values into a functional restaurant space, working around the limitations of an architecturally complex building and creating a memorable dining experience for the great British public.

Japanese studio 403architecture laid the patchwork floor of this bedroom using timber stripped from the ceiling.

The offcuts vary in colour and size, and are arranged at random to create a subtly bumpy surface.

Unlike the other rooms of the Hamamatsu apartment, the bedroom’s floor is not varnished, but simply sanded smooth.

The ceiling above remains unfinished, with ducts and electrical cables left exposed.

This is the second project by 403architecture that we’ve featured recently – see our earlier story about an apartment with drawers in the floor.

Photography is by Kenta Hasegawa.

The text below is from 403architecture:

The Floor of Atsumi

This project is for the floor in Hamamatsu, Japan.

The client who are young couple asked us to repair the bedroom which is in the timeworn apartment house located in the central city area. This plan was advanced while linking the repair of the different rooms performed at the same time.

The ceiling was dismantled to secure enough hight with fanctional converting kitchen into walk-in closet and others. Because we got a enough amount of “scrap wood”, we decide to make a new floor by that was ceilings. We cut various sectional woods finely and spread it all over the floor as a substitute for a tatami mat. Each woods varied in colors across the ages, but all surface is cutting plane. That means this floor is old at the same time new. There are errors of cutting precision and human sole can feel negligible skew of 3D curved surface which was ground smooth by the disc sander. This floor is hard to happen warpage and breaking and it is superior in noise barrier performance.

In this project, we connected destruction and construction directly, by falling the ceiling to the floor.

Spinning the wine bottle-shaped shutters in the windows of this Prague shop reveals a wall of wine racks inside.

Designed by Czeck studio Aulík Fišer Architekti, the Red Pif Restaurant and Wine Shop features an oak bar counter beside an adjacent dining area.

A framework of steel rods supports the wine bottles stacked against the rear wall, dimly lit by bare light bulbs suspended from the ceiling.

Food and drink on sale is chalked up on a wall-mounted blackboard, while an abstract landscape painting by artist Martina Chloupa hangs on the dining room wall.

Another wine shop we’ve featured in the past features shelves built from crates – read about it here.

Photography is by AI Photography.

The following text is from the architects:

Red Pif Restaurant and Wine Shop

When the client approached us with an offer to design this interior I asked myself a question whether I could at all accept such a task. Should we linger upon it though I do not understand the atmosphere of cool restaurants at all?

Disliking their shallow visuality, not understanding the purpose why they are furnished with objects from among the most up-to-date design series used as a means to become authentic – this is no singularity at all! I communicated these doubts including (in my opinion) poor examples in this sense to the client at our every first meeting.

We browsed through photographs of bars and small wine shops in France he brought me. As a source of inspiration, he said (though on the contrary to the thesis on modern restaurant). All of them spontaneously furnished rooms with the atmosphere given by the place and all those years their owners have been running them.

I objected that only life could do this. Of course – la vie en France, life in France. And that this cannot be designed because it would be like artificial flavouring of wine – and would you drink artificially flavoured wines?

I do not know now who of us used the term first, but it became the starting point of all our further reasoning – we agreed not to artificially flavour even the interior. It would contravene the character of natural wines they should sell in the wine shop.

You have to find your way to these wines ¬– only then you may fully enjoy them. And the same way we think about the interior of this way oriented restaurant – we put most of our effort to make our work invisible at first sight. Our interior should be a background allowing enjoy good wine and meal here and now.

It is determined by materials related to viticulture processed by master craftsmen – oak wood for the floor and bar counter, and rebars (used in vineyards as poles supporting vine) for bottle shelves. The shelves disappear from view with the growing number of stores bottles and they transform in a wall of bottles.

Simple removal of disturbing modifications on the ground floor in the 19th century house showed the authentic quality of these areas. After the impersonally cool paints were removed from walls the house’s history appeared – remnants of original paints and plasters mingle with scars caused by building modifications.

Touching them, seeing their graphic quality is a unique experience. A painting called ´A Vineyard´ by Martina Chloupa complements all this.

The existing shop windows provide contact with the exterior that is important for a restaurant in the city centre. However, we designed revolving screens resembling the means of storing wine bottles in boxes for evening wine tasting or private events. They allow the shop windows closed completely.

A visitor then finds himself in a sort of a wine cellar, separated from the reality of the surrounding city. This moment is also emphasised by indirect lighting and dimmed bare light bulbs – the only visible light fixtures. The shop window does not become blind this way, but transforms in a large restaurant’s logo.

Architects: Jakub Fišer, Petra Skalická – Aulík Fišer architekti
Investor: K4wines s.r.o.
Address: U Dobřenských 1, Praha 1
Project and build: 2010

Japanese architects 403architecture have turned the floor of this refurbished apartment in Hamamatsu into a huge chest of drawers.

It was only during the renovation that the architects discovered the large void beneath the suspended floor and decided to use it for storage.

Clear, corrugated plastic fronts the new sliding drawers, while scaffolding supports shelves behind and the floor slabs above.

Sheets of white fabric hang like shower curtains from a railing affixed to the exposed concrete ceiling and circle the lower level of the open-plan living room.

You can see more interiors that look unfinished here, including an office with wooden pallets for desks.

Photography is by Kenta Hasegawa.

Here’s a few more words from 403architecture:

The Difference of Ebitsuka

While managing the construction process of an apartment in Hamamatsu, 403architecture [dajiba] discovered a deep false floor, changed plans. And we used the empty space to generate a new lifestyle.

This building has only 15 apartments on 3 floors and it is located along the river. The room in focus is on the ground floor. During construction, we discovered this amazing underfloor space and we decided to use it.

Multi-purpose storage cabinets rest under the micro-mezzanine. We want to use architectural improvisation as a trigger to a more imaginative life.

Japanese architect Hiroyuki Tanaka added diagonal walls and blue lights to this Tokyo apartment.

The central cross-shaped partition creates views between the three main rooms, which comprise a bedroom, a living room and an entrance lobby.

There are softwood floors and furniture in each room and all walls are painted white.

After dark, the blue-filtered lights in the living room cause the bright white lights of the city outside to appear orange to the eye.

We’ve featured a few projects by Hiroyuki Tanaka on Dezeen, including a table with the structure of an ancient temple – see them all here.

Photography is by Shimizu Ken.

Here are a few words from Tanaka:

High-rise residence

We often look out over cityscapes from high places or out onto the scenery outside from planes. If we had the chance to build in one of these high places we would create a space that fully exploits the view.

The plan (improving high-rise residences)

(STEP 1) 
Space always needs to be divided into rooms when we consider living requirements. However, if you divide the rooms in a plan such that the opening is shared and becomes a family view then the view becomes a family treasure. This in turn makes the view become dynamic by having as large an opening as possible.
How can we create this?

(STEP 2) 
Walls are normally placed perpendicular or parallel to the outer wall of a building but doing so divides up the broad opening. So, we tried revolving this neat cross-shape plan.

(STEP 3) 
We moved the angle of the cross to create a plan where the sides are open to avoid making walls on the two open sides.

Lighting: We wanted to keep the special view to look out on and also keep the night view unique. Couples often have drinks together after dinner so we wondered if we could create a relaxed space like a hotel bar. For this, we tried planning lighting that made internal room lighting minimal and made the most of the nightscape outside borrowing the Tokyo nightscape made up of, perhaps wasteful, amounts of light without using electricity ourselves.

How about sharing both the view and the light? However, the Tokyo nightscape we were using is whitish compared to Western cities, due to the light sources. Having a thick blue light cascade down from the ceiling in the living room is our way of visually fixing the whitish light sources. Due to the correcting effects of human vision, when the expected white balance in the room leans towards blue, the whitish light from the Tokyo nightscape will appear orange within a few minutes. This is because the eye recognises the inside of the room, turned blue, as its white balance and mistakes the light coming from outside the room as closer to the complementary color of blue, orange (the room is turned to an orange color beforehand).

So, with this intriguing tuning feature of human sight and this phenomenon of opening up, the couple sees the world through new eyes.

Project name: high-rise residence
Architect: Hiroyuki Tanaka Architects
Project leader: Hiroyuki Tanaka
Project Team: Tatsuya Furukawa Hiroki Hanazuka

Lighting Design: Mayumi Kondo (Luxie)
Construction management:TANK
Date: study Feb 2011 – June 2011, construction July 2011- Oct 2011
Area: 74sqm
Location: Tokyo, Japan