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Architects: Facet Studio
- Area: 77 m²
- Year: 2011
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Photographs:Andrew Chung
Text description provided by the architects. A tunnel to enhance emotions, knitted together by different rhythms.
This is an existing Japanese restaurant popular with regular customers who are after chef’s specialty dishes. It seemed to have captured the regulars with, not only the deliciousness of cuisine, but also the indefinably nostalgia-filled space.
So how do we enhance the experience of appreciating the cuisine, without destroying this atmosphere treasured by regulars? As we have been working with “repetition” as a mean to build up a deep excitement within people, we thought to utilise this effect to enhance, rather than break, this indefinable nostalgia.
There we designed a new circulation path from entry to table, by “repeating” the recycled bricks from 100 years ago (in response to the indefinable nostalgia) and rustic raw steel (in response to the client’s preference). It is a tunnel to enhance expectation towards the cuisines when one proceeds towards the table. Longer the distance of travel, more the room for enhancing this expectation.
The “brickwall with 1/3 of its length punctured” and “brickwall with 1/4 of its length punctured” alternated for a lengthy 15m. The raw steel louvres located 1m below existing ceiling, correspond with the rhythm of brick screen by spacing at 1 or 2 brick lengths. Spacing at the tunnel ceiling changes, the resulting light and shadow create a repetitive rhythm, coming together in the tunnel.
This repetitive rhythm enhances expectation, which in turn enhances the sensitivity to taste. When one reaches the table, it is the time the desire for the cuisine reaches its peak.
