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      Simon Hamui creates clean-lined furniture for minimalist Mexico City house

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      Mexican design firm Simon Hamui has created bespoke furnishings for a moody and minimalist Mexico City home by Spanish practice Francesc Rifé Studio, using a tactile palette of eucalyptus wood, glass, quartzite, marble and brass.AdH House, which was completed last year, is a two-storey home in the residential neighbourhood of Lomas de Chapultepec and features a dark grey facade and black aluminium shutters across its two monolithic volumes.

      Top: a marble and glass coffee table centres the living room. Above: Simon Hamui created a series of built-in shelves for the home
      Simon Hamui was commissioned by the owners to create a number of custom furniture pieces that would complement and complete the work of Francesc Rife Studio, which saw the interior finished with cream coloured walls, natural stone and wood surfaces.
      “After working together in the past, [the clients] called on us to design and execute some of the key pieces of millwork and furniture throughout this house, as well as to help them curate and integrate their art collection with the millwork and interior,” explained Simon Hamui who founded his eponymous studio in 1991.
      “The house, which is a masterpiece of contemporary architecture by Francesc Rife, has very clean and minimalistic lines and we needed to strike a fine balance by complementing his architecture and integrating furnishings that amplified the owner’s lifestyle and personal partiality.”

      A quartzite lamp helps to prop up the glass tabletop

      In the living room, the firm created a custom coffee table and matching bench made from honed, grand antique marble and starphire glass — a brand of low-iron, high-clarity glass. It features sculptural solid brass legs and an integrated quartzite lamp, which also serves as a support for the tabletop.
      “To add an element of symmetry, we used the same quartzite featured on the coffee table for the adjacent bar mirrors and the aged brass on the bar’s base,” added Hamui.

      A slatted divider created privacy in the dining room
      A slatted screen divider in the dining room serves as an architectural element that divides the main hallway and living room from the dining room. Its aged brass frame encompasses smoked glass and thin wood slats that provide privacy in the dining room while still allowing light to filter through.
      On the dining room side, an aged eucalyptus wood console with a grey quartzite countertop and brass detailing is integrated into the room divider.

      Display cases in the wine cellar are lit by LED strips
      These same materials are mirrored in the dining table with its stone top and removable extensions made of smoked eucalyptus, that help to accommodate larger parties when needed.
      Sitting at either end of the table, the extensions can also be used as consoles for displaying decorative objects.

      A marble table in the cellar can be used for entertaining
      In the house’s glass-walled, temperature-controlled wine cellar, Hamui has installed rectangular wine display cases made from starphire glass. Bottles are stored on inset satin aluminium racks and lit by integrated LED lights.
      “These are designed to display the bottles in the purest way possible,” said Hamui. “The intentional positioning of the bottles creates a rhythmic and ornamental tapestry-like display that decorates the exterior space and draws people in.”
      The cellar also houses a Grigio Carnico marble table that can be used for hosting small gatherings.

      The wood-clad office was conceived in the wake of the pandemic
      The study was not part of the house’s original design but added by the clients after moving in as a direct response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
      Hamui conceived its interior as a functional wooden box, with ceiling and walls clad in eucalyptus and enhanced with micro-perforations and sound insulation to allow for greater privacy.

      The built-in shelves are by Simon Hamui and the chandelier by Jaime Tresserra
      Hamui also added a floor-to-ceiling bookcase lined with suede leather and brass details while an angular, stainless steel chandelier by Barcelona designer Jaime Tresserra hangs above the desk.
      In the family room, a large ​figured eucalyptus bookcase with brass bookstands and LED lighting is built into the wall behind the sofa, housing a textured Jason Martin painting as well as antique atlases. On the other side of the room, a millwork unit houses a TV and desk.

      A eucalyptus bookcase in the living room houses antique atlases
      Hamui’s Mexico City workshop specialises in the design and manufacture of furniture as well as comprehensive interior design projects for private residences, hotels, restaurants, yachts and art galleries.
      Last year, the studio also completed the millwork for a house with huge “beak-like” windows in New York’s Dutchess County, designed by US studio GRT Architects.
      Photography is by Victor Stonem.

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      Sky-blue cafe in Buffalo features “Alice in Wonderland” staircase

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      Canadian design duo Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster have created a playful all-blue cafe in a century-old house in Buffalo, New York, with an optical illusion staircase.Named Tipico Coffee, the cafe’s identity was formed with the intention of designing a space that encourages social interactions and supports local craftsmanship.

      The cafe’s main bar is grafted from reclaimed furniture
      Reclaimed furniture and lighting made from construction-site string lights feature alongside an oversized staircase to nowhere which forms amphitheatre-style seating.
      The cafe’s main bar is made from ten reclaimed wooden tables sourced from classified advertisements website Craigslist.

      The main bar encourages social interactions

      The tables are grafted together and painted in sky-blue, forming a unified bar which runs along one wall of the cafe.
      “The process of designing the cafe really started with the idea of the social infrastructure of the grafted bar,” Jamrozik and Kempster told Dezeen.

      Drinks on ice are displayed between the bar’s table-tops
      The open bar has clusters of swivelling stools arranged around blue table-tops that jut out of the bar’s customer side, allowing easy socialising between customers and staff.
      “The different shapes of the tables come together to create opportunities for conversations,” continued the designers.
      “This is augmented with the use of swivelling bar stools that allow patrons the ability to turn their bodies to orient themselves to a new connection.”

      Swivelling stools encourage random encounters between customers and staff

      BLUE Architecture Studio adds U-shaped glass box to Shanghai coffee shop

      Groups of circular olive-green garden tables and chairs, as well as built-in blue benches, make up two intimate seating areas behind each side of the bar, which are separated by a wall.
      The tables and chairs used are purposefully outdoor furniture. This means that the seating can be moved onto an exterior patio in the summer months.

      Tipico’s atmosphere is a mix of indoors and outdoors
      Various scattered potted plants blend green and blue furniture together and continue the theme of bringing the outdoors inside.
      Jamrozik and Kempster explained their intentions for using sky-blue as the cafe’s dominant colour.

      Ménard Dworkind creates retro coffee bar in downtown Montreal

      “We wanted to use a vibrant colour to visually tie together the bar and benches to create continuity in the space and give visual emphasis to the bar as the main design gesture.”
      “We chose blue to both complement the olive green furniture and plants, but also to create moments of contrast with the bespoke yellow lights,” they continued.

      Potted plants are scattered around the space
      The bespoke lights designed for the cafe are composed of construction-site string lights, wound around sections of aluminium stock tubes. They hang above the bar and the seating areas.
      “We wanted to transform the string lights, while still making it clear what the source product was,” explained the designers.

      Lighting made from construction-site string lights
      Metal pegboard is another off-the-shelf material used in the space, making up a menu board behind the bar, a merchandise display board and a community message board.
      The bottom of the main bar and built-in-benches was also lined with wooden pegboard in order to “give them both a visual texture, taking advantage of the acoustic properties of the perforations,” said Jamrozik and Kempster

      A merchandise display board made from metal pegboard
      A sense of the building’s historic charm remains in the existing fireplace that is preserved, which is painted in a strip of the same sky-blue paint as the main bar.
      An over-scaled stairwell acts as an additional, cosy seating area fit for a couple of customers at a time.

      The building’s original fireplace and its playful stairwell
      Sealed off by a mirror and leading to nowhere, the stairwell is intended as an “Alice in Wonderland moment,” enhancing the cafe’s playfulness.
      “The stairway’s oversized steps effectively shrink the visitor and act as seats while the mirrored ceiling gives the impression that the space continues up,” explained Jamrozik and Kempster.
      “We imagine people will be drawn to the curious space and hope that they enjoy the tongue-in-cheek reference that plays on the domestic history of the original building,” continued the designers.

      Sealed off by a mirror, the stairwell is an optical illusion
      Jamrozik and Kempster note the importance of playful design in their work, which they believe connects people in public spaces.
      “We use the language of play to create social infrastructures: physical prompts which encourage contact between strangers.”
      “We believe that questioning the way people use and occupy space and their relationship to one another through playful encounters has enormous potential to speak across generations and cultural differences,” they continued.

      The importance of play is an influence in Jamrozik and Kempster’s design work
      Designers everywhere are acknowledging the importance of designing public spaces to maximise social interactions. In Montreal, Ménard Dworkind has created a cafe with a central standing bar, while Central Saint Martins graduates have created blocky outdoor furniture for a public square in Croydon, London.
      Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster have collaborated on design projects since 2003. Their varied work spans temporary installations and permanent interior and architectural commissions.
      Photography is by Sara Schmidle.
      Project credits: 
      Architecture team: Abstract Architecture PC

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