Cake Architecture hides low-lit London speakeasy in former security station
SOMA 2.0 is a sleek speakeasy-style bar by London studio Cake Architecture, tucked under the DLR railway at Canary Wharf, with a “deliberately austere” facade. More
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Nastia Mirzoyan converts Kyiv nightclub into scantly-decorated bistro
Plywood and stainless steel meet historic brickwork in this bistro inside a former Kyiv nightclub designed by Ukrainian architect Nastia Mirzoyan. More
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Eight characterful kitchens with sleek metal details
Our latest lookbook focuses on eight homes fitted with metal kitchens, from a flat in London informed by fish-and-chip shops to a 19th-century apartment with period details in Paris.
While stainless steel has long been a material associated with restaurant kitchens due to its durability and functionality, it can bring a sleek, modern feel to residential kitchens and many now opt to integrate metal kitchens into their homes.
Here, we spotlight eight homes that make use of metal in residential kitchens in various ways.
Included in this collection of projects is a fish-and-chip-shop-inspired kitchen in London, a live-work apartment space in a brutalist building in Quebec City and a 24-square-metre micro apartment in Melbourne.
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring conversation pits, living rooms with autumnal hints of red and orange and members’ clubs with lavish interiors.Photo is by Edmund DabneyHighbury apartment, UK, by Holloway Li
Local studio Holloway Li renovated this apartment set in a converted Victorian house in north London, creating a single-storey home with an open-plan layout for its co-founder Alex Holloway.
Designed to reference materials found in London’s many fast food outlets and fish and chip shops, its custom-built kitchen was clad in circle-brushed stainless steel with a curved splashback.
Find out more about the Highbury apartment ›
Photo by Maryse Béland, Maxime Brouillet and Antoine MichelBrutalist apartment, Canada, by Jean Verville
Metal surfaces were juxtaposed against bright yellow wall lamps within this live-work apartment space that architect Jean Verville designed for himself as a “creative laboratory” inside a residential tower in Quebec City.
Stainless-steel commercial restaurant furniture was used for the kitchen, blending in with the raw concrete walls of the 1970s brutalist building.
Find out more about the brutalist apartment ›
Photo is by French + TyeTrellick Tower apartment, UK, by Archmongers
Surfaces and fixtures made from industrial-style materials were paired with newly exposed concrete aggregate walls in this home renovation by London studio Archmongers in North Kensington’s Trellick Tower.
In the kitchen, speckled brown and cream terrazzo was incorporated alongside brushed stainless steel counters, white cabinets and matt-black linoleum flooring.
Find out more about the Trellick Tower apartment ›
Photo is by Giulio GhirardiHaussmann-era apartment, France, by Rodolphe Parente
Set within a 19th-century Parisian apartment, French interior designer Rodolphe Parente balanced cabinet finishes of stainless steel and pastel pink with a frame-like marble splashback for the kitchen.
During the overhaul of the Haussmann-era apartment, Parante set out to preserve and restore some of the classic features while improving the sense of flow by connecting the dining room with the kitchen.
Find out more about the Haussmann-era apartment ›
Photo is by Félix Dol MaillotUnivers Uchronia, France, by Uchronia
Named Univers Uchronia, this eclectic Paris apartment was designed by Uchronia founder Julien Sebban as his home, intended to be an extension of his studio – known for its bold application of shape, colour and reflective surfaces.
A metallic island was incorporated in the open-plan kitchen, topped with a blobby seaweed-shaped table lamp, alongside an array of contrasting materials and colours.
Find out more about Univers Uchronia ›
Photo is by Yevhenii AvramenkoStalinist-era apartment, Ukraine, by Mirzoyan Studio
Partition shelves and built-in furniture were used to distinguish open-plan spaces in Ukrainian architecture practice Mirzoyan Studio’s renovation of this Stalinist-era flat in the historic centre of Kyiv.
Fitted in the corner of the open-plan living and dining room, the cabinets and countertops in the primary working area of the kitchen were finished in polished stainless steel.
Find out more about the Stalinist-era flat ›
Photo is by Pier Carthew Kerr, Australia, by SSdH
Metal surfaces were combined with wooden cabinetry in this mezzanine-style apartment by local studio SSdH, located in a warehouse building in Melbourne that once housed a chocolate factory.
Part of an open-plan living space, the kitchen was fitted with geometric cabinetry made from local spotted gum timber, as well as brushed stainless steel and nickel fixtures.
Find out more about Kerr ›
Photo is by Peter Bennetts Microloft, Australia, by Studio Edwards
Australian architecture practice Studio Edwards remodelled this 24-square-metre micro apartment on the top floor of a 1980s apartment block in Melbourne.
A horizontal raw aluminium surface was used for the angled wedge-shaped countertops in both the kitchen and dining area, designed to seamlessly merge the two spaces.
Find out more about Microloft ›
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration, see previous lookbooks featuring conversation pits, living rooms with autumnal hints of red and orange and members’ clubs with lavish interiors.Read more: More
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Mirzoyan Studio renovates Stalinist-era flat in Kyiv with oak and stainless steel
Architecture practice Mirzoyan Studio has renovated an apartment in the historic centre of Kyiv, Ukraine, adding reflective surfaces and built-in oak furniture.
The studio updated the two-bedroom apartment, which is within a Stalinka – a type of building characteristic of the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s – to turn it into a rental property.
Mirzoyan Studio renovated the Stalinist-era flat in KyivMirzoyan Studio founder Nastia Mirzoyan explained that the building’s historical character posed certain structural limitations, requiring “careful planning to avoid compromising its integrity”. To create the rental property, Mirzoyan opened up the apartment, which was originally the client’s family home.
“To create a more spacious environment, we decided to merge the living room and kitchen into one common area,” explained Mirzoyan.A shelving unit divides the kitchen and the living roomThe practice used partition shelves and built-in furniture to seperate the spaces. A wooden shelving unit takes centre stage in the main space, dividing the living room from the kitchen.
The dining table extends out from the shelving unit towards the kitchen. Cabinets and a countertop finished in polished stainless steel are fixed in the primary working nook of the kitchen.
The kitchen cabinets and countertop are finished in polished stainless steelNear the entrance, the team installed a full-height mirrored closet, creating a distinct entryway.
Leftover broken marble was sourced from a local supplier for the flooring of the entryway and the bathroom.Ukrainian studios “doing what we can, and sometimes what we can’t” after two years of war
The studio’s colour choices were influenced by the fact that the apartment is oriented towards the northeast and receives limited natural light.
“We opted for light and warm background colours to counteract this, creating a brighter and more inviting space,” said Mirzoyan.
A mirrored closet is installed in the entrywayThe property is dotted with reflective materials such as mirrors and stainless steel, which were chosen to “enhance the perceived depth and brightness”.
The living room and kitchen are lined with French windows opening into a quiet courtyard.
A warm and light colour palette is used across the apartmentThe use of materials such as wood and terrazzo across the space is a reference to the building’s heritage, aiming to add a “sense of historical continuity”.
Mirzoyan’s design philosophy is focused on striving to create “spaces that blend local history with contemporary elements, balancing eclectic decisions to produce environments that feel both timeless and modern”.
The bathroom floor is covered in broken marbleOwing to the ongoing war in Ukraine, the practice faced significant challenges in completing this project.
“Sometimes builders simply could not come to the site, and sometimes they came and sat in a shelter for hours,” Mirzoyan told Dezeen. “There were times when construction was halted for months, and the project budget was cut in half.”
“This experience has reinforced the importance of practical and durable design solutions that can withstand unpredictable conditions.”
Moreover, Mirzoyan foresees a trend towards “using locally sourced materials and supporting local craftsmen, contributing to the resilience and self-sufficiency of the community”.
Recently, Mirzoyan Studio also completed a hotel bar in Kyiv’s historic Podil neighbourhood.
Elsewhere in the city, Modektura has renovated an apartment featuring a balcony-turned-conservatory and Dihome has created a colourful industrial-style interior for a young couple.
The photography is by Yevhenii Avramenko.Read more: More
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Eight living spaces that go heavy on metal furniture
Although more commonly associated with industrial applications, furnishings made of cool-toned steel, aluminium and chrome are infiltrating every room of the home. This lookbook rounds up eight living spaces that show how it’s done.
In recent years, a growing cohort of young designers has been experimenting with humble, industrial metals – often using only one material, which is left raw and unfinished to promote recycling.
Among them are Paul Coenen, Annie Paxton and David Taylor, whose Knuckle light made of bent aluminium tubing was crowned lighting design of the year at the 2023 Dezeen Awards.Paul Coenen folds single sheet of steel to form furniture “that can last a generation”
Contrasted against natural materials like timber and stone, these pieces can add a raw, industrial edge to interiors while still feeling refined.
Read on for eight living spaces from around the world that are toughened up with steely metal furnishings, including a Ukrainian log cabin, a flat in Antwerp’s brutalist Riverside Tower, a Melbourne residence set in a former chocolate factory and two separate São Paulo apartments.This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides curated visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more examples, see previous lookbooks featuring homes with slides, colourful renovations and New York City lofts.
Photo by Andrey Bezuglov and Maryan BereshRelogged House, Ukraine, by Balbek Bureau
Balbek Bureau set out to offer a modern interpretation of a traditional log cabin in this renovation, contrasting the building’s warm timber panelling with an industrial palette of concrete and metal.
The Ukrainian studio created several custom furniture pieces for the cabin, including a trio of sleek stainless-steel consoles that frame the low-lying bed.
Find out more about Relogged House ›
Photo by Gareth HackerHighbury House, UK, by Daytrip
A vintage zinc-plated lamp stands atop a brushed aluminium console by American sculptor Jane Manu in the hallway of this renovated Victorian terrace house in London.
The home was designed by interiors studio Daytrip and furnished by Sophie Pearce, founder of design gallery Béton Brut, to contrast a “gallery-like minimalism” with organic materials and forms.
Find out more about Highbury House ›
Photo is by Fran ParenteFrederic Chopin Apartment, Brazil, by Tria Arquitetura
Brazilian studio Tria Arquitetura went beyond furniture and enveloped an entire column in this São Paulo apartment in sheets of stainless steel to offer a cool, sharp-edged contrast to the wood and other warm tones in the living room.
The home belongs to an art-loving couple and was designed to accommodate their collection of art and collectible design.
“The main concept in the choice of finishes and architectural solutions was to bring comfort but still leave a big void so that the works could dress the house,” said Tria Arquitetura.
Find out more about Frederic Chopin Apartment ›
Photo by Matthijs van der BurgtRiverside Tower apartment, Belgium, by Studio Okami Architecten
Metals in different finishes meet inside this duplex apartment in Antwerp’s brutalist Riverside Tower, where local firm Studio Okami Architecten exposed the building’s original concrete structure.
Sleek metal surfaces provide a counterpoint to the rough finish of the walls, painted baby blue in one instance to form a spiral staircase and elsewhere left raw in the form of cabinets and a sculptural kitchen island.
Find out more about Riverside Tower apartment ›
Photo by Pier CarthewKerr Street, Australia, by SSdH
Eclectic metal furniture takes centre stage in Melbourne’s Kerr Street apartment, which is housed in a former chocolate factory.
Among them are folded aluminium stools, a two-seater armchair with an undulating frame and a chainmail-fringed side table by local designer Annie Paxton.
Find out more about Kerr Street ›
Photo by Piet-Albert GoethalsApartment A, Belgium, by Atelier Dialect
Apartment A in Antwerp delivers a more pared-back take on the theme, pairing a chromed metal floor lamp from Reggiani with a steel-bottomed velvet-upholstered daybed by Belgian designer Jonas Van Put.
In the bedroom, Belgian studio Atelier Dialect went a step further and installed a bathtub wrapped in panels of mirrored steel in the middle of the minty-green room.
Find out more about Apartment A ›
Photo by Giulio GhirardiCanal Saint-Martin apartment, France, by Rodolphe Parente
Metal covers almost all of the surfaces in the kitchen of this Haussmann-era apartment in Paris, as well as spilling over into many of the other rooms.
In the living room, there is Axel Chay’s unlacquered aluminium Septem stool, while the bathroom is brightened up by the Morgans chair – created by French designer Andrée Putman for Emeco – whose aluminium frame is polished to such a high shine it basically functions as a mirror.
Find out more about Canal Saint-Martin apartment ›
Photo by Fran ParenteGale Apartment, Brazil, by Memola Estudio
Part of the balcony in this São Paulo apartment was converted into a bar and lounge area as part of a renovation by local practice Memola Estudio.
The practice designed a custom metal bar for the space that matches the nearby kitchen cabinetry while adding an industrial edge to the seating area with its low-slung soft furnishings.
Find out more about Gale Apartment ›
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring homes with slides, colourful renovations and New York City lofts.Read more: More
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Citrons et Huîtres oyster bar creates impression of “diving into an aquarium”
French interior designer Marion Mailaender has completed a seafood bar in Paris named Citrons et Huîtres, which features oyster-shaped door handles and a stainless steel counter informed by fishmongers.
Mailaender, who specialises in creating spaces “with a great sense of humour”, designed the bar to resemble an elevated market stall, where guests can dine inside or take away platters of oysters and shellfish.
Citrons et Huîtres is an oyster bar with coral-coloured stoolsCitrons et Huîtres has a raw steel facade informed by the storefronts of local fishmongers, which have floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto the streets of Paris.
Guests enter the bar through a door with a bronze handle shaped like an oyster shell, while a matching neon sign is fixed on the facade above the bar’s name.
The bar has door handles shaped like oyster shellsInside, the space has a vaulted ceiling that reaches more than four and a half metres in height, which is painted blue together with the walls to create the impression of “diving into an amazing aquarium”, the owners said.The walls are decorated with prints by Mailaender’s husband, the artist Thomas Mailaender, who used a cyanotype printing process dating back to 1842 to produce ethereal blue photographs of coastal scenes.
An oyster-shaped neon sign decorates the facadeCountertops are rendered in stainless steel and finished with a “pearly sheen”, while coral-coloured stools line the bar.
The bar serves local French oysters from Brittany, presented on stainless steel trays that complement the interior.
“Like a market stall with its stainless steel seafood counter, Citrons et Huîtres invites guests to savour the most incredible oysters while sipping on a glass of white,” the bar’s owners explained.
Walls and ceilings are painted in a moody shade of blueThe name Citrons et Huîtres was chosen to reference a still-life by French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who once had his studio in the same building that now houses the oyster bar.
“At the height of his glory in 1900, Renoir created Citrons et Huîtres, a piece of art that celebrates the most beautiful shellfish, classified as a national heritage of French art,” said the owners.
The bar serves local French oysters and mussels from BrittanyOther oyster bars with interiors informed by the food on offer include Vancouver’s ShuckShuck, which is traversed by a curving concrete counter, and Watchman’s in Atlanta with its “spare nautical” interiors.
The photography is by Thomas Tissandier.Read more: More
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London apartment features fish and chip shop-informed kitchen
A steel kitchen that references London’s many fast food shops takes centre stage in this apartment designed by local studio Holloway Li for its co-founder Alex Holloway, which also has a bathtub in the living room.
Located in north London’s Highbury, the apartment is set in a converted Victorian house and was renovated to create a home-cum-photography-studio for Holloway and his partner Elle Parmar Jenkins, founder of vintage furniture store Goods In.
The apartment includes a custom-built stainless steel kitchenHolloway Li sought to update the single-storey space while also maintaining many of its original features.
Part of this process included removing the master bedroom entirely to create an open-plan living space from what were originally separate rooms, and adding two extra windows to illuminate this interior.
Holloway Li looked to local fast-food shops to create this design”We exposed and retained the original timber verge beam keeping all the screws and not cleaning it up at all,” said Holloway, who founded the studio with Na Li in 2018.“We wanted to express the formation of the external butterfly roof internally by opening up the ceilings to show the vaulted geometry internally,” he told Dezeen.
This triple-aspect living space contains a striking kitchen clad in circle-brushed stainless steel with a curved splashback that takes cues from the kebab and fish and chip shops that Holloway grew up surrounded by in London, according to the designer.
Pink and orange accents feature throughout”A lot of our studio work often fuses aspects of what people might consider ‘low culture’ with a more high-brow aesthetic,” said Holloway, who explained that the kitchen was not created as a parody, but rather intends to honour the materials found in fast food outlets.
“This is what London is – a mix of high and low always across the road from one another. It’s part of what makes it interesting, and having grown up here it was important to add those vernacular visual flavours into the space,” he added.
“Also, I hadn’t seen that material [circle-brushed steel] used in a domestic setting before so I knew it would be unique.”
A bathtub was inserted into the living spaceThe studio chose a neutral colour palette interrupted with pops of vibrant colours such as orange and blue, which was led by the rosy-hued exposed plaster walls that frame the space.
Breaking with tradition, Holloway decided to insert a bathtub into the living space where the master bedroom used to be to make use of its panoramic natural light and to add an alternative touch to the apartment.
The same resin used to create the dining table top is found in the bathroomIt is positioned next to a bespoke timber Holloway Li desk and a vintage Eames office chair that Parmar Jenkins uses when she works from home, while light-hued Douglas fir flooring and chunky geometric sconce lights add to the warm interior.
Other furniture pieces by the studio include a chubby orange armchair that Holloway Li launched at this year’s London Design Festival in collaboration with Uma Objects as well as the dining table and a shower screen that were both formed from a gridded resin off-cut salvaged from a previous project.Ten self-designed homes by architects and designers
Holloway’s favourite element of the apartment is “the windows and reflections,” he said. “It is very rare to have a room in a Victorian terrace that has windows on three out of four of its sides.”
“The kitchen in turn – on the old side that doesn’t have a window – reflects the opposite windows so it actually feels like you are surrounded by light,” he added.
Colours in the living space are also hinted at in the apartment’s one bedroomThis apartment is not the first of Holloway Li’s interior designs that intend to directly respond to their contexts.
Previously, the studio dressed the Wunderlocke hotel in Munich in hues that nod to the paintings of the late Munich-based painter Wassily Kandinsky, while it designed bathroom brand Coalbrook’s showroom with industrial materials that echo the building’s original function as a tobacco-pipe factory.
The photography is by Edmund Dabney.Read more: More
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Neri&Hu inserts shed into old lane house for Blue Bottle Coffee shop in Shanghai
Chinese studio Neri&Hu has inserted a stainless-steel shed into a Shanghainese lane house for Blue Bottle Coffee’s latest cafe in Shanghai, which opened to the public last week.
Located in Zhangyuan in one of the area’s 140-year-old traditional Shikumen mansions, Neri&Hu’s design for the coffee shop aims to evoke “an intimate and nostalgic experience and bring back the memories of ‘home’.”
The Blue Bottle coffee shop is located in an old Shanghainese lane houseShikumen, also known as lane houses, is a traditional type of Shanghainese house that was popularised during the 19th century. They usually feature high brick walls that enclose a small front yard, with residential units arranged close to one another in narrow alleys.
For this project, Shanghai-based Neri&Hu kept the existing brick walls, wooden doors and windows of the original architectural facades but replaced the interior wooden structure with concrete.
A shed made of stainless steel at the centre of the cafe is used as a coffee barThe formerly separate units in the building were removed to form a large open space for the cafe. A stainless-steel shed was erected at the centre of the space to serve as the main coffee bar area.The structure of the shed was built with brushed, perforated and bent stainless steel to maximise the transparency of the space and contrast the heavy palette of the existing architecture.
Keiji Ashizawa designs Blue Bottle Coffee shop for “cave-like space” in Maebashi hotel
The areas around the bar hold seating arrangements including long benches, low stone tables, wooden stools, and vintage walnut furniture, which were chosen to reflect the traditional lifestyle in Shikumen.
Neri&Hu also nodded to the informal constructions that people living in Shikumen houses used to extend their private spaces into the alleys, by adding metal rods and small platforms to existing structural columns.
The steel span of the coffee shop shed and its integrated lighting design came from the clothes-hanging-rods and street lamps commonly seen in the old Shikumen homes.
The seating area features a range of vintage furnitureBlue Bottle Coffee was founded as a small roastery in Oakland, California, in 2002 and has since grown into a chain of cafes across United States and Asia.
This is the third Blue Bottle Coffee shop in mainland China. The first one was opened in February this year, designed by Schemata Architects, followed by the second one designed by Keiji Ashizawa Design in August, all located in Shanghai.
Neri&Hu also recently turned an old textile factory in Beijing into the headquarters of a Chinese pastry brand.
The photography is by Zhu Runzi.
Project credits:
Partners-in-charge: Lyndon Neri, Rossana HuAssociate-in-charge: Qiucheng LiDesign team: Jiaxin Zhang, Xi Chen, Peizheng Zou, Shangyun Zhou, Greg Wu, Luna HongFF&E design and procurement: Design RepublicGeneral contractor: Blue Peak Image Producing Co.,Ltd
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Click here to read the Chinese version of this article on Dezeen’s official WeChat account, where we publish daily architecture and design news and projects in Simplified Chinese.Read more: More
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Sik Mul Sung is a Mars-themed cafe with its own vertical farm
South Korean studio Unseenbird has designed a cafe in downtown Seoul, where vegetables are grown in a glass-fronted cultivation room before being harvested, prepared and served to customers on a conveyor belt.
Sik Mul Sung cafe was set up by agri-tech start-up N.Thing, which also runs a vertical farm on the outskirts of Seoul, to make the company’s technology tangible and accessible to everyday consumers.
Unseenbird wrapped Seoul’s Sik Mul Sung restaurant in stainless steelLocal practice Unseenbird was tasked with designing the cafe’s interior and wrapped large portions of its walls, counters and fixtures in sheets of stainless steel.
This is contrasted with decorative red rocks and a floor made of matching pebbles, in a reference to N.Thing’s ambition to build a vertical farm on Mars.
The cafe’s space-age theme is also reflected in its futuristic green perspex surfaces, which are played off against textured plaster walls.Food is delivered to diners via a conveyor beltSik Mul Sung’s focal point is a brightly lit, glass-fronted cultivation room where rows of vegetables grow in a vertical farming system designed by N.Thing, which can function without sunlight or soil.
When customers place an order, the vegetables are harvested and used as ingredients for salads and ice cream.
Vegetables are grown on-siteFood is delivered to diners via a conveyor belt that circulates the cultivation room and runs along the curved bar.
The food itself is presented on circular plates that rotate to recall a planet in orbit.Jeonghwa Seo creates cast aluminium and brass furniture for Seoul cafe and wine bar Et Cetera
“Customers can feel the values and dreams of the company together by experiencing cultivation, harvesting, processing and consumption here,” said Unseenbird.
“Not only was the characteristic applied functionally to the space but the brand identity was well realised with the finishing materials and tones.”
The vertical farm does not need soil or sunlight to functionSik Mul Sung has been shortlisted in the small interiors category of this year’s Dezeen Awards.
Other projects in the running include a serene timber and travertine reading room in Shanghai and a coffee shop in Shenyang, China, where stacked bottle-green beer crates form the furnishings.
The photography is by Yongjoon Choi.Read more: More
