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    Studio Tre models Bronx chocolate cafe on Puerto Rican general stores

    This South Bronx cafe that serves a chocolate-focused menu is designed by Brooklyn-based Studio Tre to reflect the brand’s Caribbean roots.

    Bright colours, palm fronds, references to Spanish architecture and wallpaper made of advertisements feature in the second cafe location of the chocolate manufacturer Chocobar Cortés.
    Several design elements in the cafe nod to spaces in Viejo San Juan, including arched openings and chequerboard floorsChocobar Cortés is a fourth-generation family company that has been growing cacao and manufacturing chocolate since 1929, first in the Dominican Republic and then in Puerto Rico.
    In 2013, they opened their first cafe-restaurant in Viejo San Juan (Old San Juan) – Puerto Rico’s historic capital – where every dish or drink incorporates chocolate in some way.
    Studio Tre travelled to Puerto Rico at the project’s onset to learn about the Chocobar Cortés brandThe second location in The Bronx brings the concept to New York City and is modelled on the “colmadito” general stores found in Viejo San Juan as a nod to its origins.

    “The design embraces the warmth of the Caribbean and recognisable textures, colours and patterns of the Viejo San Juan neighbourhood of the first location,” said Studio Tre.
    The 1,600-square-foot (150-square-metre) space on Alexander Avenue features a variety of elements borrowed from the colmaditos, including chequerboard cement-tile flooring.
    Historic photos and a rotation of works by local artists are displayed on the wallsA trio of arches that form niches for the back bar and an opening to the bathrooms echo Spanish colonial architecture.
    These arches were painted in the brand’s signature yellow hue, matching the front of the cafe counter and together adding warmth and vibrancy to the space.
    Pale green-grey plaster was applied above wood wainscoting in the cafe”Retired chocolate bar moulds repurposed as design feature above the cafe counter,” said the Studio Tre team, who travelled to San Juan at the project’s onset to learn about the company and its values.
    Ogee wood panelling and bronze hardware on the bar were chosen as an homage to the large doors found across the old city.

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    On the cafe walls, pale green-grey plaster was applied above wood wainscoting, and a mix of historic photos and a rotation of works by local and Caribbean artists are displayed.
    The bathrooms are lined with a collage of brightly coloured cartoons and old advertisments, while radio jingles play over the speakers.
    Yellow counterfronts match the brand’s signature colour, while chocolate moulds are installed aboveThe cafe also hosts a series of events and cultural programming for the neighborhood’s queer community, creating a “spirit of acceptance and celebration”.
    “Imbuing this Caribbean spirit into the design, with also the vibrant and artistic spirit of the neighborhood in The Bronx, the interiors of the restaurant establish Chocobar Cortés as the joyful celebration of culture, chocolate, and community that it is,” said Studio Tre.
    The bathrooms are lined with a collage of old advertismentsChocolate shops and cafes are popular across the globe, and their interiors vary dramatically based on their context.
    Others around the world include one that occupies a century-old house in Kyoto and another in São Paulo where the production processes are put on show.
    The photography is by Grant Legan.

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    Blue Bottle Coffee Qiantan references greenhouses and Shanghai’s brick architecture

    Architect Keiji Ashizawa has created a Blue Bottle Coffee shop in Shanghai’s Qiantan area with a glazed facade and interiors in a hue that nods to the city’s brick buildings.

    Located next to a park in the recently developed Qiantan area, Ashizawa designed the oval-shaped cafe to reference its immediate surroundings.
    His studio removed the floor slabs from the first floor of the building, creating a double-height space with an atrium-like feeling for the ground floor of the cafe that would have a connection to the surrounding park.
    Blue Bottle Coffee Qiantan is located in a newly developed area”In rainy Shanghai, we wanted to provide a place where people could enjoy the park even on rainy days,” Ashizawa told Dezeen.
    “Also, looking at the overall plan of the park, I thought that a rich interior space was required,” he continued.

    “The result is seen as a greenhouse, like those found in botanical gardens. I thought that adding a new story to the park would increase its enjoyment.”
    It features a double-height space and a central staircaseFrom the ground floor, a long stairway leads down to the cafe’s basement level, which houses the main coffee counter.
    The staircase in Blue Bottle Coffee Qiantan was designed to reference the colour of soil and have a cave-like feeling.
    “We decided to create a cave-like space for visitors to appreciate the long stairway down to the basement, creating an experience that is like crawling through the earth in the park,” the studio said.
    A coffee counter in the basement has a colour reminiscent of bricksIt also evokes the colour of red bricks, which are commonly used for Shanghai architecture. The same hue was used for the coffee counter and for a tall central wall.
    “Shanghai’s brick architecture in the old city is a strong contrast to the architecture of modern Shanghai, and it leaves a very strong impression on the eye,” Ashizawa said.

    Traditional Chinese roof tiles decorate the interior of Blue Bottle Coffee shop in Shanghai

    “We wanted to preserve some of Shanghai’s image in this newly developed location and architecture,” he added.
    “At the same time, since the cafe is located in a park, I wanted to create a sense of unity by using the image of earth in the architecture.”
    Keiji Ashizawa used wooden furniture throughout the spaceOn the ground floor, pale-wood stools are gathered around circular grey tables.
    Downstairs, Ashizawa clad the walls in greige microcement and added wooden chairs, tables and counters.
    The walls are clad in microcementLarge trees decorate both the basement and the ground floor, adding to the cafe’s botanical atmosphere.
    “The goal was to create a connection between the outside and the inside, with a natural form similar to that of the outdoor trees,” Ashizawa said.
    Large indoor trees connect the cafe with the park outsideWooden benches also offer visitors the option to drink their coffee outside in the park.
    Ashizawa has designed numerous other Blue Bottle Coffee shops, including one in a Kobu department store and another Shanghai outpost that was decorated with Chinese roof tiles.
    The photography is by Jonathan Leijonhufvud.
    Project credits: 
    Architect: Keiji Ashizawa DesignProject architect: Keiji Ashizawa / Chaoyen WuLighting Design: Aurora / Yoshiki IchikawaLandscape Design: Hashiuchi Garden Design / Hashiuchi Tomoya

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    Tate Modern’s Corner cafe revamped to be less “Herzog & de Meuron-y”

    Architecture studio Holland Harvey has overhauled the ground-floor cafe at the Tate Modern in London so it doubles as the gallery’s first late-night bar.

    Tucked away in the museum’s northwest corner, the interior of the Corner cafe was originally designed in 2000 when Herzog & de Meuron created a home for the UK’s national collection of modern art inside the disused power station on the Southbank.
    Corner is a new cafe and bar at the Tate ModenSince then, the Tate had made no changes to the space until Holland Harvey was brought on board to refresh the interior at the start of 2022.
    “It was quite a cold space,” the studio’s co-founder Richard Holland told Dezeen. “All very Herzog & de Meuron-y.”
    “They’re amazing at what they do in so many ways,” he continued. “But this was not their best food and beverage space.”

    A grey stone bar forms the centrepiece of the roomHolland Harvey stripped back many of the cafe’s hard, reflective finishes, sanding away the black gloss paint on the floors to reveal the parquet underneath and removing the mirrored glass that Herzog & de Meuron had used to enclose the building’s original riveted columns.
    Fluorescent lights were replaced with more muted spots by London studio There’s Light, while the dropped ceiling above the bar was rounded off and covered in foam insulation to soften the interior – both visually and acoustically.
    Otherwise, many of the cafe’s core elements including the servicing as well as the kitchen and toilets remained largely untouched to prevent excessive waste and maintain the integrity of the building.
    “You don’t really want to mess around with the servicing because 12 feet above your head is a Picasso,” Holland said. “So it was pretty light touch.”
    The cafe backs onto the Tate’s Turbine Hall. Photo by Edward BishopThe biggest intervention came in the form of a newly added riverside entrance, allowing passersby to stroll straight into Corner rather than having to take the long way through the gallery.
    At the other end of the open-plan room, a door leads directly into Tate’s famous Turbine Hall, effectively linking it with the public spaces of the Southbank.
    Stone seating banquettes double as impromptu climbing frames”The Turbine Hall is one of the most successful public spaces in London,” Holland said. “It’s one of the few indoor places you can go, where people happily sit down on the floor in the middle of the day.”
    “And obviously, the Southbank is an amazing public offering as well,” he continued. “So this felt like an opportunity to connect the two, which led a lot of the thinking around the design.”
    With the idea of extending the public realm, many of the newly added pieces are robust and fixed in place, much like street furniture. Among them are the double-sided Vicenza Stone banquettes, which can also serve as impromptu climbing frames for young children.

    UXUS designs “permanently temporary” gift shop for Herzog & de Meuron’s extended Tate Modern

    Holland Harvey created a number of other seating areas throughout Corner to suit different accessibility needs, with a focus on supporting local manufacturers and small businesses while reducing waste wherever possible.
    Corner’s long sharing tables and benches were made by marginalised young people from west London as part of a carpentry apprenticeship programme run by social enterprise Goldfinger, using trees that were felled by local authorities to stop the spread of ash dieback.
    “Every table has the coordinates of where the tree has felled on it, so there’s a provenance to the furniture,” Holland said.
    The chairs were taken from Tate’s own storage and refinishedThe chairs, meanwhile, were salvaged from the gallery’s own storage before being refinished and reupholstered, while the smaller tables were made by Brighton company Spared using waste coffee grounds from Tate’s other cafes.
    These were baked at a low temperature to remove any moisture before being mixed with oyster shells and a water-based gypsum binder.
    Although the resulting pieces aren’t fully circular since they can’t be recycled, Holland hopes they tell a story about the value that can be found in waste.
    Waste coffee grounds from the gallery’s other cafes were turned into table tops”We’re by no means saying that it’s an exemplar project in that sense,” he explained. “We were just trying to find opportunities to tell stories through all the different elements rather than just going to the large corporate suppliers.”
    “And that’s really our wider impact: people realising that there’s a different way to procure a table. Imagine if all of Tate’s furniture moving forward is made by Goldfinger,” he continued.
    The cafe also has high counter seating for remote workingIn the evenings, the space can be transitioned into a bar and events space by switching to warmer, higher-contrast lighting, while a section of the central banquette can be turned into a raised DJ booth by pressing a button that is hidden under the cushions.
    “This place can get quite wild in the evening,” Holland said.
    Timber shelves are used to display productsThe last significant amendment to the Tate Modern building was Herzog & de Meuron’s Switch House extension, which opened to the public in 2016.
    The building contains a gift shop designed by Amsterdam studio UXUS, alongside various galleries and a viewing level on the top floor, which is currently closed to the public after Tate lost a high-profile privacy lawsuit brought by the inhabitants of a neighbouring residential tower.
    The photography is by Jack Hobhouse unless otherwise stated.

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    Sukchulmok adds curved brick forms to rooftop of Parconido Bakery Cafe

    Curved forms and arched openings feature in this cafe, which Seoul studio Sukchulmok has added to an existing building in South Korea’s Gyeonggi-do province.

    Named Parconido Bakery Cafe, the cafe is made from red bricks and features playful curved shapes and rounded walls designed to create an illusion-like effect.
    Parconido Bakery Cafe was designed by Sukchulmok”The space, created through one rule, was designed to give a sense of expansion and the experience of an optical illusion image,” lead architect Park Hyunhee told Dezeen.
    Arranged across three floors including a rooftop level, the cafe was designed by architecture studio Sukchulmok to resemble European public squares in reference to the client’s time spent in Italy.
    The studio topped the roof with curving brick volumes”The client who spent his youth living in Italy is a clothing businessman, opening the cafe as a business expansion to provide people with a space for peaceful rest,” said Park.

    “These two aspects naturally reminded me of the image of the European square, where people are huddled together talking on a sunny day between red brick buildings and stone pillars.”
    The design drew references from nostalgic memories of ItalyOn the rooftop level and terrace, the outdoor dining spaces are punctuated by clay brick columns with arched connections and walls with U-shaped openings.
    Built around steel frames that extend into curved forms above the brick walls, the curved elements are coated in bricks cut to two-thirds of their original thickness to lighten their weight.
    The walls and floors have curved edgesA long stainless steel table with a curved underside, along with circular stools and planting, is shaded by a removable canopy made from green, orange and white fabrics.
    Curved walls lined with white tiles join with the tiled floor and ceiling to create rooms with rounded forms on the interior levels of the cafe.
    The rooms are covered in small tiles of travertine limestone, selected for its use in the fountains of European squares.

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    Kitchens are built into recesses in the curved walls, while wooden elements, including wall panels and pipes that line a portion of the ceiling, add a feeling of warmth to the interior.
    Throughout the spaces, uniquely designed seating areas and bespoke circular furnishings provide spaces for dining.
    The interior was covered in different textural materialsComprising twelve different designs, the cafe’s set of furniture was designed to exhibit a variety of shapes, textures, and materials, including leftover finishing materials, wood, overlapping pipes, and concrete castings.
    “Although they have slightly different shapes and textures, the pieces of furniture are all in harmony with the space and show good synergy with space as an object,” said Park.
    The cafe’s curved edges all have a radius of 600 millimetresTo maintain a sense of uniformity, the studio based the design of each element, including the walls, columns and furniture, around a circle with a constant radius of 600 millimetres.
    “A radius of 600 millimetres was used as an act of connecting spaces that were not monotonous,” said Park. “It was simply based on the idea that the distance from the height of the door and window to the ceiling finish is 600 millimetres.”
    Furniture was specially designed for the interiorOther South Korean cafes recently featured on Dezeen include a bakery with a curved courtyard designed to act as an “artificial valley” and a Seoul cafe with a vertical farm.
    The photography is by Hong Seokgyu.

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    Prada opens Milanese-informed cafe at Harrods

    Fashion house Prada has opened the Prada Caffè in luxury department store Harrods, which has an interior that is blanketed in the brand’s signature green hue and mirrors one of Milan’s oldest patisseries.

    Located at the corner of Hans Road in London, the Prada Caffè is accessed via a mint green latticed storefront that complements Harrods’s Edwardian baroque terracotta facade.
    Prada Caffè is located in HarrodsThe interior of the pop-up cafe draws on the interior of Pasticceria Marchesi, a Milanese patisserie that opened in 1824, which has similar pale-green interiors that are paired with green velvet-upholstered soft furnishings.
    At Prada Caffè, the walls, ceilings and furniture – including booth seating, plush armchairs and architectural elements – were hued in a minty green referred to as Prada green, a colour that has become synonymous with the brand.
    It was decorated in Prada’s signature green colourA large marble countertop, decorated with textural, pebbled panelling at its base, is located at the entrance to the cafe and used to display Prada-branded patisseries that are presented like individual pieces of jewellery.

    The floors of the space were clad in black and white-checkered floor tiles in a nod to the floors of the Prada boutique located in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.
    The interior referenced Prada stores and a Milanese patisserieFloral reliefs and mouldings cover the walls and ceilings of the cafe, which the brand explained aims to evoke the look of Prada stores worldwide.
    A mezzanine level, supported by green columns, is decorated with bowed balustrades and used as an elevated seating area overlooking the marble-wrapped patisserie counter.

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    At the rear of the cafe, a secluded room continues the interior scheme. Here, green velvet booth seating surrounds the perimeter of the space beneath decorative floral relief walls.
    Tableware was selected specifically for the cafe and ranges from blue-hued Japanese porcelain, informed by ancient Celadon pottery and decorated with contrasting black lines, to blown-glass crystalware.
    A checkered floor runs through the cafeTo accompany the blown glassware and duck egg blue porcelain, silverware was engraved with Prada branding and features handle ends that are shaped like the brand’s triangular logo.
    The cafe will remain at Harrods until January 2024.
    Furniture was upholstered in velvetDuring Milan Fashion Week, Prada presented its Autumn Winter 2023 collection in the Deposito of the Fondazione Prada, which featured a moving and retractable ceiling.
    Elsewhere in London, Ola Jachymiak Studio brightened a cafe in Notting Hill incorporating terracotta-tile floors and tangerine-hued walls.
    The photography is courtesy of Prada.

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    Eight offbeat bakeries and patisseries that provide playful backdrops for baked goods

    A steely space-themed patisserie displaying chunks of meteorite and a green monochrome pastry shop with squiggly furniture feature in this lookbook of unusual and unique bakery interior designs.

    Architects and designers across the world have created bakeries and patisseries with striking interiors that provide a playful setting from which to collect baked goods to take home or enjoy while dining in with a tasty treat.
    From a bakery with an open-plan kitchen that showcases the bread-making process to a cheese tart shop with a Lego display counter, here are eight offbeat bakeries and patisseries that have been featured on Dezeen.
    This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring inviting entrance halls, minimalist Tokyo apartments and bathrooms with colourful sanitary ware.
    Photo is by Jonathan LeijonhufvudBlack Star Pastry, China, by Linehouse

    For Australian chain Black Star Pastry’s first Chinese outpost, design studio Linehouse created a space-themed interior filled with stainless-steel shelves displaying meteorites.
    The shelving extends to the top of the walls and curves to form an arched ceiling. On the white-tiled counter, nine levitating cakes are displayed in glass containers.
    Find out more about Black Star Pastry ›
    Photo is by Mikhail LoskutovBreadway, Ukraine, by Lera Brumina and Artem Trigubchak
    Designers Lera Brumina and Artem Trigubchak finished this cafe and bakery in Ukraine with colourful walls and upholstery.
    Originally a dental clinic, the designers transformed the interior by combining pink and rusty hues with blue and grey tones to “emphasise the warm colour of bread”.
    Find out more about Breadway ›
    Photo is by Imagen SubliminalCasa Mela, Spain, by Casa Antillón
    The Casa Mela pastry shop in Madrid is made up of two rooms that Spanish studio Casa Antillón contrasted by completing one in white and the other in green.
    Customers enter the shop via the all-white room, which features an angular stainless steel counter displaying the sweet treats on offer (pictured top).
    In the green room, metal tables and chairs with wriggly edges provide dining furniture.
    Find out more about Casa Mela ›
    Photo is by Carolina LacazMintchi Croissant, Brazil, by Dezembro Arquitetos
    Architecture studio Dezembro Arquitetos was informed by pastry techniques when designing the Montchi Croissant patisserie in São Paolo.
    The flooring, countertop and bench seating were made from perforated terracotta bricks, which were infilled with concrete piped from an icing nozzle.
    Find out more about Mintchi Croissant ›
    Photo is by Kyung RohCafé Teri, South Korea, by Nameless Architecture
    Located at the base of a mountain in Daejeon, South Korea, the Café Teri bakery and cafe is made up of two buildings with exterior walls that curve towards each other to form an “artificial valley”.
    Designed by Nameless Architecture, the curving walls create a dramatic effect in the bakery interior and slope down to form stepping seating.
    Find out more about Café Teri ›
    Photo is by Volker ConradusSofi, Germany, by Mathias Mentze and Alexander Vedel Ottenstein
    Danish architects Mathias Mentze and Alexander Vedel Ottenstein transformed a former brick factory in Berlin into the Sofi craft bakery with warm tones, wood finishes and red vinyl flooring.
    At the centre of the space is an open-plan kitchen that the architects designed as a “production floor” allowing visitors to watch the bread-making process.
    Find out more about Sofi ›
    Photo is by Takumi OtaBake, Japan, by Yusuke Seki
    A counter made of Lego bricks forms the centrepiece of this cheese tart shop in Kyoto, which was created by Tokyo-based designer Yusuke Seki.
    Bamboo latticework lines the walls on either side of the counter and an open kitchen at the rear reveals the process of baking the cheese tarts.
    Find out more about Bake ›
    Photo is by Jerome GallandLiberté, France, by Emmanuelle Simon
    Interior architecture studio Emmanuelle Simon added arched shelving coves and rounded furniture to the Liberté bakery in Paris, aiming to create a unique space that encourages visitors to stay a little longer than usual while on their bakery trip.
    The rounded shapes were complimented with warm sandy colours and Raku tiles – ceramic tiles that were created by the ancient Japanese firing technique – cover the central island and back walls of the alcoves.
    Find out more about Liberté ›
    This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring inviting entrance halls, minimalist Tokyo apartments and bathrooms with colourful sanitary ware.

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    MEE Studio creates wood-and-copper interior for cafe in former church in Copenhagen

    Architecture firm MEE Studio has designed the interiors and bespoke wooden furniture for a cafe and boutique in the Nikolaj Kunsthal art gallery within an old church.

    The municipality-run gallery, which is set in a deconsecrated church in central Copenhagen, asked MEE Studio to design a “lively and functional” space.
    Before designing the interior spaces, which feature warm and tactile materials such as copper and wood, the rooms in Nikolaj Kunsthal first had to be restored.
    The gallery is located in a former church”The spaces had been used for various purposes since the 1980s including art installations and other changing uses,” MEE Studio founder Morten Emil Engel told Dezeen.
    “This has left the spaces with remnants of ad-hoc electrical wiring, bricked-up arches, blocked-off windows and arbitrary lighting. Additionally, there was no water supply or plumbing in the spaces that now have the cafe.”

    The studio reestablished the grand door and window openings in the space and replaced the old acrylic paint with breathable lime-based paint, while also adding acoustic plaster to improve the acoustics of the spaces.
    Untreated copper was used as a backsplash for the barAt the centre of the cafe, Engel created a long bar that also functions as a ticket counter and is made from solid oak wood.
    Wood was also used for all the other furniture, including benches, tables and sculptural shelves, which Engel designed specifically for the project using European oak from sustainable forestry.
    “I wanted the benches to reference church benches – a bit chunky and heavy,” he said. “The church architecture is very robust with the church tower having two-metre thick walls. So the furniture had to have some substance to them.”
    The furniture complements the “robust” church architectureEngel also aimed to give the pieces a contemporary feel by fusing their “heavy look” with more contemporary elements.
    “All the furniture has visible joinery and tectonics in fumed oak, which allows the user to see how they are made and assembled,” he said.
    “I added some decorative inlays in the bar counter and boutique shelves. Inlays were traditionally used as a way of repairing wood and I wanted to symbolise that repair can be beautiful and sustainable,” he added.
    “In this way, it is sending the message that the furniture should have a long life and be repaired if it ages.”
    Artworks decorate the walls, here Pull by Martha HviidBehind the central bar, a copper backsplash adds an eyecatching material detail together with the matching sink and worktops, which were designed in reference to the roof of the old church.
    “As many traditional buildings in Copenhagen, the roof of St Nikolaj Church is made with traditional copper roofing, which has aged to a rich green patina over time,” Engel said.
    “I wanted to reference the existing material palate of the church but use it in a new way. So the kitchen features worktops, sinks and backsplash in raw untreated copper, which will evolve beautifully with time.”
    Lime-based paint was used for the wallsThe white walls of the cafe and store were contrasted with not just the copper and wood but also a burgundy red fabric designed by fashion designer Raf Simons for Kvadrat, which was used for the cushions and backs of the sofas and chairs.
    The colour was a nod to some of the space’s original colour but could also help disguise red wine spills in the cafe.
    “Oakwood was already used throughout the church so it seemed natural to use oak as a material,” Engel explained.

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    “There was also the burgundy red paint which had been used originally for some woodwork, for instance, the stairs in the tower and the ceiling in what is now the cafe,” he added.
    “So it seems natural to work with an interpretation of the burgundy red for the color of the cushions. I matched the burgundy red to a fantastic Kvadrat textile designed by Raf Simons and it worked in providing vibrancy, but also as a practical colour in a cafe where red wine is served.”
    Red fabric was used for the seating, with the artwork Mercury (socks) hanging aboveAs well as the bespoke furniture pieces, the space was also decorated with carefully chosen artworks that have ties to the city of Copenhagen.
    “Mercury (socks) is a photograph by the famous Danish/Norwegian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset from a series of classical sculptures by the world-famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen,” Engel explained.
    “The Thorvaldsen Museum is located only a few minutes away from Nikolaj Kunsthal, so the work relates both to art from the 19th century and contemporary art from the 21st century which is what you find in Nikolaj Kunsthal.”
    Other recent interior projects in Copenhagen include Space10’s headquarters, which has a kiosk-like design library, and the cafe and shop design for Designmuseum Denmark by OEO Studio.
    The photography is by Paolo Galgani.

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    Keiji Ashizawa adds Blue Bottle Coffee shop to Kobe department store

    Japanese studio Keiji Ashizawa Design has created the interior of the Blue Bottle Coffee shop in Kobe’s Hankyu department store, taking advantage of its display windows to connect the cafe with the street outside.

    The 173-square-metre cafe, which shares the department store’s ground floor with a number of apparel brands, has five large display windows.
    To open the coffee shop up towards the street, designer Keiji Ashizawa turned one of the windows into a take-out counter.
    One display window was turned into a take-out counterThe remaining window niches were filled with blue built-in seating, creating a splash of colour among the wooden furniture.
    Inside the cafe, square-shaped and rectangular furniture nods to the graphic look of the facade and is contrasted by round tables and large circular ceiling lights.

    “The furniture is mainly made of domestic wood in collaboration with the Japanese furniture manufacturer Karimoku, who specializes in working with oak wood,” Ashizawa told Dezeen.
    Wooden furniture and terrazzo tabletops were used for the interiorThe studio also mixed in terrazzo amongst the wooden furniture to give the cafe a welcoming feel.
    “By placing a large terrazzo tabletop with fine textures created by mixing grounded glass into the material, it adds to the soft and welcoming atmosphere that identifies Blue Bottle Coffee and their hospitality,” Ashizawa said.

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    “It is also used for the low coffee table surrounded by the sofas, creating a sense of harmony and elegance throughout the space of the cafe,” he added.
    While the studio was unable to change the material of the existing rough concrete floor, the department store allowed it to create a discrete demarcation by polishing the floor underneath the central tables.
    Circular pendant lights were made from raw aluminiumLarge disc-shaped pendant lights add a sense of drama to the coffee shop’s pared-back design.
    “With the idea of creating a high ceiling within the space, the pendant lights were made from raw aluminum to complement the industrial structures,” Ashizawa said.
    “Six pendant lights are placed in the central space at equal distances in three zones, creating a sense of rhythm and spatial balance.”
    The concrete floor was polished in part of the cafeThe wooden furniture inside the Blue Bottle Coffe Hankyu cafe has mainly been kept in its natural colour, but Ashizawa added bright colour to some of the wood.
    “In the space with concrete structures, the yellow color was added to balance the combination of wood and concrete, and the blue color was placed as a contrast,” he said.
    “We also designed the space to fit in with the apparel brands that share the ground floor.”
    Shelves were painted a bright yellowAshizawa has previously created a number of cafes for the Blue Bottle Coffee company, including a Shanghai store decorated with traditional Chinese roof tiles and a Tokyo outpost with a volcanic-ash counter.
    The photography is by Tomooki Kengaku.
    Project credits:
    Architect: Keiji Ashizawa DesignProject architect: Keiji Ashizawa, Tomohiko Fujishita, Masaru KiotyaConstruction: TankDesign supervision: Miyachi Office/Kunihiko MiyachiLighting design: Aurora/Yoshiki IchikawaFurniture: Karimoku Case Study/Ichinomaki Laboratory by KarimokuMetal works: Super Robot

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