Inside studio Atelier Tao+C has designed a restaurant for Blue Bottle Espresso on Shanghai’s West Bund waterfront, that includes wood canopies stretched out above a prefabricated concrete counter.
The cafe overlooks a historic shipyard in West Bund, forming a part of a post-industrial website on the Huangpu River that when contained Asia’s largest cement manufacturing facility.
Dutch agency MVRDV’s masterplan for the redeveloped website combines a number of preserved industrial constructions with trendy interventions containing cultural and leisure amenities alongside new public areas.
Atelier Tao+C’s venture, which options on the shortlist for Dezeen Awards 2025, goals to mirror the positioning’s historical past and its present context alongside meals markets, eating places and occasion areas, together with Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s West Bund Grand Theatre.
“The design is a considerate response to its environment, integrating the economic previous of the positioning with the current city context, whereas offering a welcoming area for espresso lovers,” the studio stated.
Contained in the cafe, a pair of slanted timber columns seem to prop up hovering white “canvases” that divide the area whereas including a way of peak and lightness.
The canopies are, in reality, made out of painted wooden and incorporate spotlights whereas concealing necessary mechanical and electrical companies.
“The timber canvases remedy spatial and technical challenges,” the studio stated. “They offer an outside feeling to the inside and body river views, remodeling a useful ceiling into an experiential and environmental mediator.”
Stainless-steel and blue particulars beautify modular Valley Truthful Kiosk for Blue Bottle Espresso
All through the inside, Douglas fir panelling and wood furnishings present a heat distinction to the polished concrete ground and prefabricated concrete bar.
The laminated wooden panels are used for show cabinets and partitions that separate the kitchen, situated in a single nook of the unit, from the remainder of the area.
Bespoke benches positioned across the cafe’s perimeter mix cast-concrete bases with seats made out of timber panels that slot collectively.
The espresso bar and benches have been fabricated off-site after which put collectively within the cafe to minimise building waste and allow exact meeting.
Angular concrete benches with built-in tables are positioned exterior the cafe, offering views of the river by the concrete-and-steel framework of the historic cement manufacturing facility.
The espresso store kinds a part of the Gate M West Bund Dream Heart website, combining elements of the present manufacturing facility with constructions from a earlier growth proposal.
Lots of the district’s buildings have been used for the Shanghai Expo 2010, which supplied the catalyst for making this a part of the river accessible to town’s residents.
Elsewhere within the Dream Heart growth, native structure studio Atelier Deshaus overhauled present buildings to the north of the positioning, whereas panorama structure studio Area Operations oversaw the general public realm overlooking the waterfront.
The images is by Wen Studio.
