Project Team

design: Design Theory

photographer:

We were asked to bring together two very different tenants – a sushi train and a coffee roaster ‐ together in the one space called Next Door, a takeaway retail concept space with limited seating
Both the coffee roaster Humblebee and sushi train The Sushi had an existing identity with their existing sites.The spaces are defined through this material colour, texture and usage. Humblebee has a raw ‘operational warehouse’ industrial palette to tell the story of its coffee roaster, with cement on the counter (referencing factory flooring), red used on benching (referencing the block primary colour in working factories); and raw timber (referencing the roasting facility behind).

In contrast, The Sushi’s palette tells a clean food story with a lighter, ‘fresh’ take on industrial through simple building materials used in innovative ways, such as the lighter coloured timber (pine) used en masse for banquette seating, wall cladding and counter.  The Sushi believes in sushi that is straight from the chef to the table with no refrigeration in‐between for rice softness, so we reflected that through colour and operational needs.

The Sushi is designed not only for operational service and aesthetics, but also with ergonomics of the chefs and diner considered.

We researched short lead time materials that were cost‐effective and custom designed features in-house to meet the brief and had an easy‐going language that we could use to create a dynamic space.  As a Studio we have a focus on researching materials and working closely with manufacturers, this approach, coupled with industrial‐style materiality ‐solved the challenge of working within a (very) limited budget.

We feel the result is a lively food‐market that is casual, easy‐going and welcoming.