Shape of 2017: Remarkable Restaurant Designs

Stu/D/O have a statement to make through the interiors they designed for this Bangkok bar 'Nowhere', and they chose the stairs to convey the same. Yes, the pretty bar has stairs ribboning their way up and down and all around, leading... nowhere! No, it is not meant to confuse visitors, but to get across the message that life is to be lived here and now. So, yes, the name is meant to be read as 'Now Here' and that's where you are invited to live it up.

Encased inside mostly glazed exteriors with interiors bathed in grey, the restaurant would have been a rather neat yet mundane affair had it not been for the surprise sprung by two ribbons of bright white stairs winding their way around the place randomly. The staircases lead up and down to various levels in the same large space, sometimes forming the tables, the bar counter at others and even seem to disappear above the ceiling alluding to a stairway to heaven. Greenery makes an appearance at random spots along these stairs and their landings as well as up the ceiling high bar shelf to add further warm zest. What the stairs also seem to do is to create an illusion of space in small areas and also fill in the voids in other large areas, effectively balancing the distribution of space. All in all, one gets the feeling of being in a larger open area like an alley with your own private nook to spend some peaceful time rather than being in the same room full of other people. The simple yet groundbreaking use of an architectural element like stairs in the interior decor has created a heartwarming surprise that attracts the attention of patrons, giving the place an edge over the competition.

Appearing like something out of the modernist era, like one of Le Corbusier's works, one least expects the building to host a contemporary restaurant. But, wait... there's a vast expanse of spider glazing as one looks up, and the entrance flanked by triangular, blue pools of water sort of give away the warmer vibe within. And, the large area of landscaped outdoor seating as well as the chic, industrial interiors do introduce a pleasant twist in the tale.

On a fairly large corner plot abutting two busy boulevards of Lavasan in the Tehran Province of Iran, Boozhgan Studio was called upon to design a restaurant within a tight budget. They knew they had to capitalise on basics like architectural form, structural integrity and landscape while doing away with fancy finishes and redundant materials. So, having placed a single extruded cuboidal mass parallel to the main boulevard, the designers turned its mouth at an angle that enabled the entrance to face the plot corner and thus be clearly visible from the main boulevard. The visitor, having seen the brightly lit title board placed at the plot corner, is then drawn into the side lane made to enter from a side in a way that makes them explore the landscape around before entering the building. The entrance is no less impressive with triangular pools of water, turning azure by reflecting the blue china mosaic cladding the slopes supporting the cantilevered slab above, on either side of a dramatically angular glazing. The cantilever itself lends prominence to the entrance, and the stairs within take the visitor on further explorations of  the interesting interiors, while the quaint geometric punctures on huge bare concrete walls cast beautiful light patterns on the inside by day and light up the the kite-like facade like a lantern by night.

Driving into a huge barrel that seems to have opened out to spread itself out over a driveway is surely a tantalising invitation to drown in the promised spirits within. Yes, that's the entrance porch of Ateliê Wäls, a restaurant and bar topping a brewery and wine store located among the mountains of Bello Horizonte in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Actually, it is easy to see why the designers GPA & A, led by architect Gustavo Penna, thought of an immense unravelled barrel as the apt form for the project, but that the form works so well in terms of aesthetics as well as marketability is hard  to deny.

As one drives from the road onto the driveway tucked into the folds of this slatted timber canopy, a glass enclosed bar and restaurant space spreads itself out at grade. Lit up in a red-pink hue, the space has seats and tables placed in between shelves of barrels holding 100,000 litres of aging .beers of various labels, serving to store the drink while dividing the space artistically. Adding to this are the ceiling finishes of suspended stemmed glasses and a canopy of thousands of cork stoppers that enhance the ambience. This restaurant caps the wine cellar and beer factory with an office and outdoor truck loading area, all of which lies at a grade below that of the road. For a place that is purposed for innovation in beer production and sale through several standardised as also other customised beers served through taps along with food to match, the architecture sure matches every step with its own awesome uniqueness.

Snohetta (Of course, again, who else?) has conceptualised an under-the-sea diner which, located near Baly village in the Lindesnes Region at Norway’s southernmost tip, has begun construction to be completed in 2018. Further than being just a restaurant, this building will serve (again, in true Snohetta style) as a research centre for marine studies as well as ‘grow’ into an artificial mussel reef thanks to a densifying mollusc community which will, in turn, purify the sea around enough to attract more marine life into the area.