Kengo Kuma & Associates received orders for the interior design of two cafes - the Starbucks chain coffee shop in Dazaifu and the Kureon cafe in Toyama - almost simultaneously. And although the establishments themselves are very different from each other both in their focus and in the circle of visitors, there is something subtly common in their appearance, betraying the involvement of the same author.
Starbucks is a café and coffee shop located in Dazaifu, a city symbolized by the camphor tree and the plum blossom. Adjacent to the cafe is a garden in which these trees are planted in abundance and where a terrace is organized for lovers of an invigorating drink. This neighborhood prompted the architect to interpret the Starbucks hall itself as a kind of transition from a noisy street to a green oasis. The room in the plan has the shape of an elongated rectangle, and outwardly resembles a long and laconic box, the back wall of which is completely glazed and faces the garden.
Kengo Kuma compensates the utmost laconicism of the architectural solution with the help of an inner shell - the ceiling and walls of the cafe are finished with a lattice of thin wooden poles. And if a rather thin wooden "layer" is launched along the walls, then the ceiling is decorated with a multidimensional structure of many crossed beams, giving depth and complexity to the space above your head.
At the heart of the Kureon Cafe project, built in Toyama, one of the most climate-friendly cities in Japan, is a similar structure made of many thin wooden beams. True, here the lathing is not only an element of interior decoration, but also an integral part of the architectural image.
The walls of the cafe are completely made of glass, and wooden geometric "honeycombs" are run over it both from the outside along the transparent facades and along the internal walls.
In addition to a purely decorative function that emphasizes the visual lightness of volume, these elements help to zone the dining room space into several cozy segments.
A. M.
