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Cookbooks (like their literary counterparts) tell a story; years of experience and wisdom are offered as the author guides readers through unusual pairings, a surprising use of a fresh herb, a favorite wine and more. Recipes stand as guidelines, meant to be experimented…
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Dutch designer Piet Boon has transformed the interior of a former military hospital chapel in Antwerp, Belgium, into a contemporary restaurant featuring a sculptural chandelier.
Piet Boon‘s Amsterdam studio worked with lighting designers .PSLAB and artists Studio Job on the interior of The Jane restaurant, combining modern elements with the chapel’s high ceilings and patterned tile floor.
“The main features we retained in The Jane were the ceiling, of which the peeling paintwork was preserved, and the original pottery floor tiles,” the design team told Dezeen.
Described by the designers as “fine dining meets rock ‘n roll”, the restaurant accommodates its kitchen in the church’s former altar.
.PSLAB’s large chandelier made from steel and hand-blown crystal glass forms a centrepiece in the restaurant. Thin steel poles extend out in all directions from its central cylinder, with small crystal globes attached to the end of each one.
Black circular tables and pale green armchairs sit beneath the chandelier, while larger seating areas are positioned against the walls.
Studio Job created 500 colourful glass window panels to replace the former stained-glass windows.
Referencing “stories of good and evil, rich and poor, life and death as well as good food and religion”, the panels include images of sunflowers, devils and skulls.
A marble-topped bar is installed on an upper-level viewing platform and surrounded by black upholstered bar stools. An illuminated skull light hangs down at the rear of the space.
Bespoke speakers were also installed to “spread sound”, reducing noise and echo from the high ceilings. “The acoustics of the restaurant play an important role in speech intelligibility and ambiance,” added the designers.
Here’s some information from Piet Boon:
‘Divine’ fine dining experience The Jane opens its doors March 25th
Michelin-star chef Sergio Herman and chef Nick Bril created their “fine dining meets rock ‘n roll” restaurant vision together with Piet Boon over three years ago in a mythical location in Antwerp; the chapel of a former military hospital. Piet Boon® Studio, responsible for the interior design and styling of The Jane, since then collaborated in the chapel’s unique transformation into a high-end, contemporary restaurant with international allure where experience is key.
Piet Boon
Based on her belief in authenticity, functionality and materials that ‘age beautifully’ the studio chose to restore only the highly necessary in the chapel and hence preserve the rest. The original ceiling amongst others conveys the pure, understated and respectful environment that serves as the authentic host for the ultimate fine dining experience.
The original altar gave way to the kitchen that – just like the atelier – is embraced by glass, like a modern shrine. It allows guests to witness everything the team creates for them.
The shared passion of Herman, Bril and Boon to work with pure, rich materials is expressed in the interior in which qualitatively outstanding natural stone, leather and oak wood are used.
Moreover Piet Boon® Studio, as with many of her projects, collaborated with a number of leading creative partners to shape the “fine dining meets rock ‘n roll” character of the overall experience. Studio Job, Mathieu Nab and .PSLAB and others each delivered their signature part within the total concept.
Studio Job
Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel of Studio Job designed the windows consisting of 500 unique panels. Inspired by the chapel’s original function, foam spatulas, sunflowers, devils, skulls, babies, Jesus on the cross, dice, apple cores, wrenches, ice cream cones, a canon, croissants, penguins, trophies, gas masks and birthday cakes portray a contemporary translation of the old stained-glass windows. Archetypes from various worlds each tell masterpiece stories of good and evil, rich and poor, life and death as well as good food and religion.
.PSLAB
The ‘piece de résistance’ in the centre of the restaurant is a 800 kilograms-weighing gigantic chandelier of 12 by 9 meters with over 150 lights, designed by the Beirut-based design studio .PSLAB. The chandelier was created in such a way that it contributes to the intimate and ambient divinity of the chapel interior. The team, specialised in the design and production of site-specific contemporary lighting, laid out an overall lighting plan for The Jane to accentuate the unique elements of both the building and the interior. It is aimed to create a scenic ambience by seamlessly combining artistry and engineering.
SERAX
Together with Belgian company SERAX, specialised in decoration accessories, Piet Boon® designed tableware that conveys a shared passion for attention to detail and perfection. Base by Piet Boon® is a high quality bone white porcelain collection combining functionality and design. The tableware has high thermal stability, is lead- and cadmium free and will be featured in the The Jane’s Upper Room Bar.
The post Military church in Antwerp reinvented
as a restaurant by Piet Boon appeared first on Dezeen.
This reflective metal-clad box containing a restaurant rises like a periscope above a small shopping complex in São Paulo by French-Brazilian architecture office Triptyque (+ slideshow).
Triptyque was asked to create a building that incorporates three shops, a bar, an art gallery and a restaurant with a VIP room, and decided to locate the latter inside a cantilevered metal box called the Observatory.
“Located in a street where the buildings are next to each other, the Observatory is not a stage in addition, it is a building on a building, the city on the city,” said the architects. “It opens a new dimension of growth straddling the shopping complex and overlooking the Oscar Freire neighbourhood of São Paulo.”
The reflective top-floor structure appears to hover above the rest of the three-storey building and is supported by a series of columns that reach to the ground level.
Stainless steel panels covering the exterior of the Observatory create distorted reflections of the surrounding streetscape, which can be seen up close from the open terrace on the storey below.
At street level, customers enter three shops contained in narrow units arranged in a staggered formation that step back from the pavement of the Rua Oscar Freire.
The restaurant’s main space is housed on the first floor, with the kitchens above and a lift providing access to the VIP room at the top of the building. A ramp leads from the street down to the basement level, which houses parking and services for the building.
Triptyque based the multi-storey arrangement of the complex on the Spatial City theory developed in 1959 by Hungarian-born French architect Yona Friedman, who imagined inhabitable structures raised on piles to free up space below.
“It is an artificial topography composed of megacities above ground responding to the problem of rapid population growth in large urban areas in the world,” said the architects.
The architects also recently transformed a 1920s building in São Paulo into a creative arts space for drinks brand Red Bull, featuring a huge steel awning covering the roof.
Photography is by Leonardo Finotti.
The architects sent us this project description:
The Observatory
The architecture agency Triptyque was commissioned to design a complex in São Paulo with three shops, a restaurant, a bar and an art gallery. The shops should have access to the city while the restaurant had to be housed in the upper floors.
The complex was designed as a binary metal structure: a “ground” level that receives the shops, and a “space” level called “the Observatory” which houses the restaurant where the group of Franco- Brazilian restaurateurs Chez Group has created its new meeting place: Chez Oscar.
Located on a street where the buildings are next to each other, the observatory is not a stage in addition, it is a building on a building, the city on the city. It opens a new dimension of growth spanning the shopping complex and overlooking the Oscar Freire neighbourhood of São Paulo.
Massive and cubic volume, the observatory is balanced on an asymmetric structure which imparts kinetic and operates a disruption between the street level and spatial scale effect. Completely covered with stainless steel, reflections are distorted and blurred over time and tropical storms.
In this design, the architects of the agency Triptych were strongly inspired by the concept of the space city of Yona Friedman created in 1959. It is an artificial topography composed of mega cities aboveground responding to the problem of rapid population growth in large urban areas in the world. It draws a three-dimensional city that multiplies the original surface of the city with elevated planes, and thus created a new map of the territory.
The building The Observatory Oscar Freire grasps architecture as a dynamic form, between materiality and potentiality, open to users interaction as well as environmental conditions. It was inaugurated in October 2013.
Project : Freud/Oscar Freire
Localisation : R. Oscar Freire 1128, 1134, 1138 e 1142, Jardins São Paulo
Start of project (year): 2010
Delivery (year): 2012
Surface: 675 sqm
Built surface: 1400 sqm
Architecture: TRIPTYQUE
Associates: Greg Bousquet, Carolina Bueno, Guillaume Sibaud and Olivier Raffaelli
General coordinator: Luiz Trindade
Project manager : Aline D´Avola
The post Triptyque’s shiny metal restaurant hovers
over São Paulo shopping complex appeared first on Dezeen.
This conceptual restaurant covered in a patchwork of textiles is the final instalment in Polish designer Karina Wiciak’s series of fantasy interiors.
Karina Wiciak of Polish studio Wamhouse designed the twelfth and final imaginary restaurant in her XII collection to look like it’s been made from discarded material.
Titled Szmaciarnia, which means “rag-house” in Polish, the interior employs patches of leftover fabric stitched together haphazardly to form surfaces.
These grey, blue and beige materials cover walls, ceilings and the restaurant’s bar.
“Szmaciarnia is not a tribute to the idea of recycling, but proof that the elegant interior may not just be created with popular glass or metal,” said the designer.
“The rough texture of the fabric does not need to be associated with cheapness and mediocrity, and the possibilities of its application are still endless,” she added.
Fabric is also draped over a reception desk and small swatches are used to form lampshades. The remaining surfaces are coloured white to provide a contrast.
Furniture such as chairs and stools first appear to be made from marble, but on closer inspection the veins in the material turn out to be stitched seams.
Other designs in the collection are inspired by a slaughterhouse, a sewing room and an artist’s studio.
The post Textile patchwork covers conceptual
restaurant by Karina Wiciak appeared first on Dezeen.
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Much like the city’s compact urban landscape, Amsterdam’s creative history is also densely formed, and even a quick visit to the Dutch capital can be extremely inspiring. Interestingly, you often hear Dutch people say they strive to act “normal”—yet it’s their dynamic way of viewing the world that has continued…
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