Hasta La Ideas

We found this Thai canteen furnished with construction materials a few streets away from Dezeen Space, which was open in Shoreditch until 16 October.

Design studio Mansikkamäki+JOY designed the London GRAB restaurant, where diners sit on red plastic stools at tables made from scaffolding.

Behind the counter, menu boards are mounted onto timber pallets and display a selection of street food dishes.

Walls at the back of the canteen are lined with corrugated metal, while light bulbs attached to red and blue cables dangle from the ceiling.

Furniture made from building materials seems to be popular with a few designers – see our older stories about a boutique with rails made of bronze-plated scaffolding, an office with wooden pallet tables and a motel made from scaffolding.

Photography is by Valerie Bennett.

The following text was sent to us by the restaurant:

GRAB Thai Street Kitchen by Mansikkamäki+JOY

A few minutes’ walk from Old Street Station sits the recently opened GRAB Thai Street Kitchen – a new concept in Thai cuisine. GRAB believes good Thai food does not have to be a once-in-a-blue-moon fine dining experience, instead, GRAB returns to the simplicity of Thailand’s urban street food culture – tasty, affordable and everyday. Customers walk into an accessible array of freshly prepared dishes with curries dispensed from behind the counter. Good food can be fast.

Mansikkamäki+JOY, in collaboration with Lifeforms Design, create an urban street atmosphere by translating affordable construction materials and street furniture into a clean and minimal interior space. Menus hang off a wall of backlit wooden pallets, whilst corrugated metal sheets line some of the neighbouring vertical surfaces. Large globe light bulbs are suspended from a web of red and blue cables, hang from the generous ceiling, reminiscent of the lively scenes of Bangkok. Communal tables were made in-house using the by-products of the restaurant’s construction and are coupled with the iconic red plastic stools that are so integral to the image of urban street vending in Thailand. An easy-going atmosphere, raw design and simple materials allow the food to speak for itself.

See also:

.

Grand Cafe Usine by Bearandbunny	MS café by Wunderteam	Café Coutume by Cut Architectures

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.

See also:

.

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

Charred larch clads the curved walls of a seafood restaurant that projects towards the harbour in Folkestone, England.

Rocksalt Restaurant by British studio Guy Hollaway Architects sits atop a new sea wall beside a historic brick viaduct and is shielded from stray boats by a screen of timber columns.

A cantilevered balcony with a glass balustrade wraps around the sea-facing facade of the restaurant, sheltered by a canopy.

The building is raised on a stepped slate plinth to protect it from flooding.

Locally caught fish will be served inside the restaurant, where lamps designed to look like lobster cages hang above circular tables and leather seating booths.

This is the first completed building from architect Terry Farrell‘s seafront masterplan.

Another popular seafront restaurant on Dezeen is located in a remote forested gorge in southern China – see all our stories about restaurants here.

Photography is by Paul Freeman.

Here are some more details from the architects:

Rocksalt Seafood Restaurant Folkestone Harbour, Kent

Rocksalt Restaurant and Bar is a newly built destination restaurant in Folkestone Harbour and is the first restaurant venture for executive chef Mark Sargeant, former head chef at Gordon Ramsay’s Claridge’s.

Won at national competition by Guy Hollaway Architects, it is the first complete building to be realized as part of Sir Terry Farrell’s Folkestone masterplan. The completed restaurant and bar forms a crucial milestone in the regeneration of Folkestone’s ‘Old Town’ and harbour, serving to reconnect visitors and the population of the coastal town with the working harbour and seafront. The restaurant is located on Folkestone’s harbour edge, adjacent to its working slipway where local fishermen unload their catch, delivering fresh fish to the restaurant daily. It is hoped that the project will catalyse the ‘Padstow effect’.

Perched in the corner of the tidal harbour between a listed brick viaduct and cobbled street, the restaurant faces the former fish market. Folkestone boasts a small fishing fleet who off-load catches on to the slipway directly adjacent to the restaurant. The building sits on a new curved sea wall and borrows back land to form a wine cellar. Timber dolphin piles protect the building from stray boats.

On approach, the building presents itself from under a brick arch and then peels away from the cobbled street to reveal the harbour. Three curved walls, decreasing in height are clad in shot blasted black larch to echo the surrounding context. A slate plinth raises the building from the flood risk zone and elevates the views. Angled reveals on picture windows allow sight into the kitchen, reflecting the working nature of the fish market, and offer views back to the street. The slate steps leading to the entrance merge into public bench seating at the top of the jetty facing out to sea.

At ground floor level, the restaurant has 86 covers and the opportunity for a private dining room. Large glass sliding doors allow uninterrupted panoramic views of fishing boats at high tide and sandy shingle flats at low tide. From the restaurant’s interior a cantilevered balcony, with a glass balustrade and curved soffit creates an extension of the internal dining area.

Liz Jeanes, interior designer at Guy Hollaway Architects led the interior scheme, taking strong influences from the immediate context. The interior colours emulate colours of the sea and sky – rising from dark, aquatic greens and dark tones of timber at ground floor; rising to a lighter palette of blues, greys and whites, contrasting with warmer shades of iroko on the first floor bar and terrace. A marble top to the ground floor bar and marble floor tiles show influences from traditional fishmonger interiors, whilst the main restaurant uses herringbone laid oak parquet flooring to emulate the scales of a fish.

Tall backed leather booth seats sit beneath the low curved ceiling, enveloping diners into the restaurant. The curved ceiling then extends from the restaurant back wall, opening out to the sea and is designed to reflect the smooth curved form of a fish’s side. Dark stained larch panelling at ground floor level echo the exterior envelope treatment, and including concealed acoustic insulation between slats within the busy restaurant.

Hidden LED strips wash light across ceilings and down walls, providing a subtle radiance to the interior spaces. Feature pendants are reminiscent of lobster pots and accentuate the bar and central table on the ground floor.

The building directly engages with the harbour – at ground floor, three large sliding doors blur inside and outside, and at first floor large sliding doors open fully to merge the bar and external terrace seamlessly. Beyond the pebble filled roof elevated views of the harbour and to the English Channel beyond are offered.

The completed building sees its concept realised by re-engaging visitors and local residents alike with Folkestone’s rich coastal heritage, serving as a catalyst to revitalise the local area.

Client: Folkestone Harbour Company
Date: June 2010 – June 2011
Contract Value: £2.3m

See also:

.

Pollen Street Social by Neri&Hu (NHDRO)	Tree Restaurant by Koichi Takada Architects	Living Lab by Ab Rogers for Pizza Express

Raw concrete and rough limestone clad the interior of a London ice cream parlour designed by branding studio Vonsung.

Located inside a historic building in Fitzroy Square, the gelato shop is filled with bulbous black sofas and cylindrical white stools.

Ice cream packaging and signage were also designed using a monochrome palette.

The only colours to be found in the shop are inside the ice cream cabinet.

This is the second story on Dezeen this week about an ice cream shop in London, following an Italian gelato stall that evokes the seaside – see all our stories about ice cream parlours.

Here are some more details from Vonsung:

Polka Gelato

Vonsung recently completed the total identity design for Polka Gelato, from naming, identity, branding, signage, website to spatial design. Based in a conservation area, Fitzroy Square, Polka Gelato opens its doors to showcase their artisanal way of creating ice cream. Despite all the talk of a double-dip recession in the UK, the client’s wish was to offer something enlightening, from old to young, a sense of affordable luxury amid these difficult times.

The ambition of the new ice cream brand was to open a gelato store sourced only from the finest ingredients of precious, exotic fruits, herbs, spices and flavors. The vision was to bring the age-old history of Italian gelato to London, while a recent trip to New York sparked a new revolutionary thought – the gelato popsicle. To realize this vision, London’s design studio, Vonsung, was invited to work on the dream.

The character of the listed building situated near the Fitzroy Square, is clearly that of a London period building. The dilemma was how to avoid the ice cream parlour formula of pop-culture, primary colours interior decoration, without making a disconnected piece of modern design that clashes with the building’s original identity.

An early decision was to place the Polka’s colourful, beautifully crafted gelatos as the central focal point and make the surrounding interior resemble the sculpted nature of the hand-made gelato.

The concept of the store plays with the complementary characteristics and the related dichotomy between male and female; child and adult; night and day. This is reflected in the design through the formal language and tactile quality of the finish materials used. The surrounding interior is unified with a single colour used on all surfaces.

Housed inside a concrete/limestone mix surrounding, the furniture piece on the floor is designed as a strong, masculine and dynamic form whilst the lighting enunciates femininity to create more fluid contour lines. The store is designed in a more playful manner creating different zones that maintain the perspective view between them.

Joseph Sung (Creative Director Vonsung) has strived in his precedent projects to experiment variant ways to explore materials. Among the natural, old, and time-proven material, Sung has derived at lime concrete for this project. Being situated in a historical setting, Sung felt that juxtaposing old and new material would give expected meaning for both, as exemplified using external architectural material within the interior space of the gelato store.

Stemming from the client brief, Sung identified with the key word, ‘artisan’, and made every effort to not to allow the solid masses of concrete material to feel uncomfortable for the visitors, but feel a sense of skill, artistry of the space. The boundaries of the interior wall and ceiling were made to be permeable as possible by way of shadow gaps and openings. Also, to reduce the monolithic manner of concrete, Sung mixed limestone into the batch and applied a smooth finish to the raw concrete.

The result was an interior space, which kindles the feeling of being an insider in an environment; simply put, it recognises what may feel like being within a creamy gelato batch. By adopting this method of design, Sung drew the attention to the timeliness of the space and architecture. All faculties of perception and senses, particularly tactility, facilitate the customer experience.

Known for increasingly severe minimalism, this project is Sung’s latest interpretation of totality of branding design, however restrained and serene but rich in texture and delicate modulated light. With the aim of creating a space that will age better with time, our design creates a circular passage allowing the customer to experience the space in multiple ways and interpretations.

Furniture staged in key points throughout the store creates the spatial concept using a small space changing to an open condition.

Looking from the outside, the interior resembles a tale of a spaceship landed on the moon. If you taste a scoop of Polka Gelato, you may well think you are (over) the moon.

Completed: August 2011
Design: Joseph Sung (Vonsung)
Design Assistants: Jing Chen, Teresa Wong
Branding: Michiko Ito (Vonsung)

Contractor: MKM Contracts
Lighting: iGuzzini
Carpentry: Valchromat
Furniture: Modus, HAY

Click above for larger image

See also:

.

Dri Dri by Elips Design	Snog frozen yogurt by Cinimod Studio	Leggenada Ice Cream by SO Architecture

Dutch architects Concrete designed flattened parasols of rusted steel to shelter the terraced restaurant outside a historic castle in Girona, Spain.

The canopy is composed of twelve steel-coated discs that overlap one another to cover up to 200 diners at the restaurant.

Gaps between circles on the canopy surface are filled with glass.

Transparent curtains can be hung around the parasols to provide additional protection from the wind.

Surrounding the courtyard is the fourteenth century castle, which was converted into a boutique hotel back in 1999.

This story is our third in recent months to feature a converted castle – see our earlier stories about castles converted into museums in Germany and in the Alps.

Photography is by Ewout Huibers.

More information has been provided by the architects:

Program: a terrace covering to accommodate 200 people.

Short design story

Hotel Castell D’emporda located in Girona, Spain offers a signature restaurant including a large terrace with great views over the surrounding landscape. Concrete designed, at the clients’ request, a roof or covering for this terrace with the possibility to create an enclosed space with full wind and rain protection. One of the design conditions was to create a covering that works in harmony with the historical and listed building. Additionally we wanted to maintain the terrace feeling while be seated under the covering.

Click above for larger image

In principle a terrace is an outdoor space where one can enjoy the weather. If necessary, you need a parasol for sun or rain protection, but there is almost no obstruction between the visitor and the view. The solution was to create abstract parasols. 12 Circles in divers diameters are placed randomly on the terrace. Where the circles touch they melt together, the open spaces between circles are filled in with glass. The circular parasol shapes enhance the feeling of being in an outdoor environment on a terrace. The shape of the covering appears as a separate almost temporary element, leaving the ancient building untouched.

A glass roof or a winter garden would to much become a building, create a feeling being inside a structure and would also appear as an extension of the building, damaging the ancient character.

The top and edge of the parasols are made in rusted steel, seeking harmony with the ancient building and the natural environment. The white painted steel columns and ceiling create an open and light outdoor atmosphere under the parasols. Transparent sliding curtains can be hung easily in colder periods but always stay open. When the mistral winds suddenly appear the whole terrace can be closed in a couple of minutes.

Round and square marble tables and two white leather lounge couches create different seating facilities. Underneath one parasol a circular outdoor bar is placed. The restaurant now has his own name: Margarit.

Click above for larger image

History Castell d’Emporda

Castell d’emproda was build in 1301 on a hill nearby the small city of La Bisbal close to Girona (Spain). The castle has been owned for centuries by the Margarit family. In 1973 Salvador Dali wanted to buy the castell for his wife, but the owner refused a payment in artworks. Since 1999 Castell d’emporda has been transformed into a boutique hotel.

Project: Castell D’emporda
Client: Albert Diks, Margo Vereijken – Castell D’emporda – La Bisbal, Girona

Concept, architecture and interior: Concrete
Office address: Rozengracht 133 III
Postal code: 1016 lv
City: Amsterdam
Country: the Netherlands

Project team concrete: Erikjan Vermeulen, Rob Wagemans, Cindy Wouters, Melanie Knuewer

Advisors:
Building regulations: Figa Arquitectos – Girona
Structural advice: Bellapart Construction – Olot

Contractors and suppliers:
Steel construction and corten steel: Bellapart Construction – Olot
Groundwork, ceilingwork and electrical: Burgos Gasull – la bisbal
Transparant curtains: Iaso – Lieida
Bar, loungeseating and tables: Roord Binnenbouw – Amsterdam
chairs: Academia – Italy
lighting: Modular

Covered area: 250m2
First briefing: januari 2011
Opening: june 2011
Duration of construction: 2 months

See also:

.

Tree Restaurant by Koichi Takada	Metropol Parasol by J. Mayer H.	Pormetxeta Square by Xpiral and MTM