People didn’t have a suitable place to connect and enjoy hours over a brewed cup of excellent, aromatic beans, so the concept of a coffee house grew. Indeed, a café is an excellent choice for a range of situations; whether you’re on a date, meeting with friends, or working with coworkers, the atmosphere is one of leisure and good times.
The times when cafés were merely modest eateries where you could grab a sandwich and a cappuccino on the go are long gone. Café design has developed into everyone’s favourite gathering areas to meet up with coworkers or acquaintances, or to spend a little time alone reading or even writing a novel! People operate a business while sitting for hours on end in their favourite cafes.
People nowadays follow the coffee trend and happily visit cafés all around the world to enjoy a great drink in trendy surroundings. Even if you purchase one of the best coffee makers for your house, the experience of a unique coffee house is simply not the same; it lacks the aura that pervades brilliantly designed public spaces.
Coffee shop owners pay talented designers to build unique interiors and reach a wider range of customers, and they are successful because it is always interesting and tempting to visit a location that sticks out from the crowd. So, which one-of-a-kind coffee house throughout the world is worth visiting?
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Let’s look at some uniquely designed Café around the world.
The café with a pink glow
Location: Koji Saryo Café, Vison, Taki, Japan
The architecture of this space for Uonuma Jozo was designed by Atsushi Suzuki and his practise Transit Branding Studio, and it is based on the koji fermentation process utilised by drinks and food companies.
The brilliant pink interiors of the Koji Saryo Café were inspired by the heat required for koji fermentation, including the rose-colored, large light fittings that create a shielding ‘roof’ for diners. The walls, structural columns, flooring, and counters have all been painted in various tones of pastel pink.
Transit has kept the furniture to a minimum level, with simple round tables and food goods strewn over the shelves. The total effect is a warm pink glow that spills out the cafe’s windows and casts colour onto visitors’ faces, evoking the scorching heat of a typical amazake factory, according to the studio.
The Lilac Café
Location: Voronezh, Russia
Inside Kruzhok Cafe in Voronezh, Russia, gooey shapes and ice cream colours hint to the delicious delicacies on offer.
The lilac-drenched pastry bakery, which is named after the Russian word for doughnut, has given new life to the purple end of the spectrum, according to architect Eduard Eremchuk and designer Katy Pyatitskaya.
The cafe’s is art and architecture are inspired by its nickname, with light fixtures that mimic twisted strands of dough, with gloopy chairs and tabletops, and pillows that mimic the icing droplets. Even the restrooms have been adorned with swirls of whipped cream. ‘The pastry is everywhere, it appears and feels like the cafe is made of dough,’ said the architects.
The walls are studded with vividly coloured artworks by Elena Minaev, a tribute to Kruzhok’s renowned caramelised popcorn-topped doughnuts.
Café dressed in Dior
Location: Dior Café, Miami United States
A Café adorned out in the brand’s iconic toile de Jouy print and adorned with the Collection’s characteristic animals to subtly immerse the visitor in a brand experience excursion all through the space’s design. The Dior café, which is located on the third-floor outside terrace of the Miami Design District boutique, follows a longstanding tradition started by Monsieur Christian Dior and his desire to convey his love for the contemporary art of entertaining and his taste in art de vivre.
In keeping with this ethos, the newly constructed coffee house includes a hidden lush garden that complements the Dior décor. The new re-designed arrangement and outdoor experience imagined by dooArch expands on the idea of relating landscape and hardscape as an organic experience, with wrap-around benches, landscape lighting, and random animals populating the space to assort a new client experience with their menu of coffee, teas, juices, assorted fruits and pastries.
Guests will notice a prominent Toile de Jouy theme throughout the venue, which was recently revamped by Artistic Director Maria Grazia Chiuri for the Cruise 2019 collection with the addition of unexpected animals like as tigers, giraffes, and monkeys. The show area has a three-dimensional look to it, with wrapping and geometry diversions ostensibly enhancing the guest’s overall experience.
This renowned eighteenth century French design, which has been seen throughout the room and printed directly onto the patio decking, may be found on the walls of Monsieur Dior’s first boutique at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris since 1947. Wild animals from Toile de Jouy’s pastoral settings come to life as giant 3D artworks that meander the coffee house and hang from the trees, taking you into a fantasy universe.
Café with classic Ralph Lauren aesthetic
Location: Madison Avenue, New York City
If you’re seeking a neutral backdrop that will fit any Instagram feed and appear incredibly gorgeous, Ralph’s Coffee is among the most Instagrammable cafés in New York, on the inside and out.
Ralph Lauren introduced Ralph’s Coffee in 2017, and it embodies the Ralph Lauren brand’s enduring American attitude. This branding is conventional and complete in every manner, with deep green tones across the entire branding system and a nostalgic logo of old-school eateries. According to Ralph Lauren himself, “For me, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee conjures up a plethora of recollections. I spend the most of my time with my friends and family, whom I adore. In that spirit, I wanted to establish unique coffee blends and a space where people could come together and unwind from their busy days.”
Everything about this coffee house, including the branding, is traditional, timeless, and evocative of the Ralph Lauren brand.
A Café that is an ever changing exhibition
Location: Shizuoka, Japan
ETHICUS theleema, a coffee house and tiny gallery in Shizuoka, serves coffee amid ceramics. When asked to design a coffee house that would also have space for exhibitions by local ceramicists and artists, designer Wataru Tanabe Studio had to be creative with the space, given the total area is only 50 square metres. Simple, minimalist, and balanced is the end product.
ETHICUS theleema has a smattering of stools and stands created from reused logs and stones that can be used as a place to sit and drink or as part of the exhibition display. Hot beverages are offered from stainless steel countertops tucked into the cafe’s nooks.
The architecture of this coffee house shows white columns and subdued colour scheme that testify to the status as a gallery, while the enormous front windows make frames for the items on exhibit inside at night.
6. Café-cum-bicycle store
On the inside of a disused industrial facility in Downtown LA’s Arts District, a one-stop bike shop has opened its doors. Tami and Chase Spenst’s Wheelhouse combine coffee and cycling culture together in the area’s heart’s artistic community. The shop provides a service department besides the coffee house and bike shop.
‘Coffee is a great community builder,’ says Chase Spenst, ‘and it also has incredibly deep roots in the cycling culture.’ ‘By combining coffee and bicycles, we were able to bring cyclists and non-cyclists together in one area, making cycling more appealing.’
‘This location had previously been a refrigerated storage facility, so it had effectively been kept, in all its concrete splendour, for the last 20 years,’ according to studio Pluck, which designed the 3,700 sq ft coffee house. ‘When you walk in, the 25-foot ceilings create a great wow effect, and the exposed wood beams add a wonderful warmth in contrast to the concrete,’ says the designer.
Spenst and her design studio added more rustic wooden accents, as well as garage-style roll up doors that lead to an outdoor space for the café part of the store. It used a blue colour scheme on the inside to balance out the harsher tones of the concrete surfaces. Bicycles appear to be ghosting through the barrier thanks to a feature wall adorned with black bike parts. The designers also created a loft space for the service centre by opening up the existing mezzanine level.
Café designed within 20 sq.m.
Location: Shanghai, China
Fine café, despite its location on one of Shanghai’s busiest thoroughfares, is designed to attract only the most devout of pastry-loving pilgrims, with its small footprint of just 20 square metres.
The coffee house and dessert place is an eponymous extension to the brand’s tiny chain of Japanese-style cafés in the city, and its rustic interiors were created by Atelier A.
With exposed brick and rough cement walls and flooring, Atelier A has given the interiors an old-world feel. The staff bar and pastry cases are constructed of weathered dark wood, which adds to the old ambiance, and a trio of little wooden tables are set on the wall.
Fine’s architecture has a raw minimalist vibe which is complemented by exposed lightbulbs and electrical cables.
Café that transforms into a Kaleidoscope Wonderland
Location: Miami, USA
At Superblue Miami’s Blue Rider Cafe, London-based designer Yinka Ilori has converted the space into a maximalist playground. The multicoloured makeover was contracted to commemorate Design Miami 2021, and while it is Ilori’s first venture in Miami, it will be permanent. It will stay open after the art crowds have dispersed, allowing visitors to see Ilori’s Nigerian-inspired murals and design ideas for themselves, with a Miami spin.
‘I adore making places where people can make memories,’ Ilori says. The spirit of Miami, the architecture, the colour palettes, and the patterns were all very inspiring to me for this project. Here, there’s a lot of happiness.’
Blue Rider is envisioned as a joyful area where people can get together and enjoy food and share memories, with vibrancy and Nigerian pattern being used to generate joy and stimulate remembrance.
The mobile and informal hand-painted stackable stools with arching legs and four brilliant colorways promote gathering and conversation. Meanwhile, walls have been covered in a cacophonous print and pillars have been painted brilliant yellow.
Coffee House made of shipping containers
Location: Taiwan
We cannot talk about coffee house architecture without mentioning the biggest coffee chain in the world, Starbucks. In Taiwan, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma built a multi-story Starbucks inspired by coffee trees out of 29 shipping containers.
To create the 320 sqm mega-café, the white volumes were spaced across four levels and positioned at 90-degree angles. This alludes to the plant’s foliage as well as classic Chinese barrel arches, which may be found in temples and antique buildings.
Each container is connected by glazed pathways, and light is pulled into the space through skylights and massive floor-to-ceiling glass panels that punctuate the coffee shop’s front.
The ribbed steel exterior of the cabins has been left exposed, and timber floors have been used to soften the space — part of the soon-to-open Hualien Bay Mall. There are also wooden booths strewn about the Starbucks establishment.
Café with 12000 wooden sticks on its ceiling
Location : Madrid, Spain
This project entails the creation of a new design for a third bakery in Madrid that specialises in baking bread and cakes. The client believes each cafe should be distinct from the others, and the only major requirement is that their corporate colour, magenta, be used.
The structure is in the town core of Alcala de Henares. The coffee house is on the ground floor of a historic structure. The designers realised there was no need for much ingenuity once they eliminated the internal partitions and cleaned up the façade. The old brick walls spoke for themselves, giving the area a significant personality, thanks to the building’s history.
Designers needed to discover a strong character element that could compete with the constancy of the 150-year-old-framed walls without dominating them in order to generate a contemporary design. As a result, they built a contemporary art piece comprising almost 12,000 wooden pink sticks suspended from the ceiling. This installation catches everyone’s attention!
Virginia del Barco, an architect and designer, also created the lighting and a portion of the furniture, such as the chairs, stools, shelving, bar-top, whiteboards, and light boxes in the exterior. The many elements of the claddings can be seen in the photos, as well as the high-quality micro-cement sidewalks that give the coffee house a polished elegance.
Café with retro-industrial vibe
Location: New York City
Starbucks’ Reserve coffee house in New York’s Meatpacking district has opened its doors, paying respect to the neighbourhood’s industrial history.
Liz Muller, the company’s chief design officer, designed the interiors of the three-story, 23,000-square-foot structure. In the ‘working’ section of the facility, colossal bronze casks take centre stage.
The ceiling, meantime, is a sculptural mosaic of panels crossed by copper piping that links the zones of the coffeehouse, as well as vertical timber slats, which were constructed with acoustics in mind.
Inside the area there is a cafe and an aperitivo bar, just like in Milan. It has a 60-foot-long bar with a copper artwork of Starbuck’s mermaid insignia that looks out over the roastery and serves beer and coffee-infused beverages.
A 90s themed Café
Location: Montreal, Canada
At this Montréal coffee house designed by Ménard Dworkind, the art and architecture, faux wood panelling and telephone-wire lights harken back to the 1990s.
The owner of Caffettiera Caffé Bar wanted to conjure happy recollections of the decade, so he charged the design firm with replicating it in the coffee shop’s furnishings, as well as providing a relaxing location for people to enjoy an espresso before work.
The sky blue ceiling and colour-blocked laminate tabletops are contrasted by black-and-white checkerboard tiles that run throughout the Montreal coffee shop. The false wood panelling that runs around the cafe was a sentimental request from the proprietor, according to the studio, and gives a kitsch touch to the modernist interiors.
Guests sit in steel chairs or banquettes upholstered in tan leather, or stand at the counter to drink their coffee in the Italian style. Orders are taken behind a black terrazzo bar, where sliding signs set on an orange steel beam show where to order and pay.
The pendant lights, which are suspended from a coiled yellow telephone wire, were provided by Lambert & Fils. Ménard Dworkind has added vintage books, toys, photos, and stickers to further conjure recollections of the previous decade. On the city’s Stanley Street, the bar and coffee house are located.
