Shaorou Cafe
The cafe is located within an existing commercial street mall development in Kuching. The building contains busy coffee shops, eateries and offices on various levels. At its conception, the cafe was intended to be the first eatery within the building to be located on the upper floor. An internal common space links all shop lots in place of a typical back-lane, essentially acting as a ‘street mall’. This meant that like a mall, the back of the lot was to be prioritised as the main frontage for the café.
To address the need to attract customers to the café due to its atypical location in the building, the signage of the café was designed as a lightbox. The idea was to draw attention from the bustling crowds both around and below the café, signaling its presence within the building.
Glass blocks were incorporated extensively throughout the café. This is due to their ability to balance transparency and privacy, ease of maintenance, and air-conditioning requirements. The design of the glass block façade of the front intends to strike a balance between the idea of pulling in crowds through transparency, while maintaining enough detachment from the busy coffee shop environment outside.
Indoor plants are used extensively in this project due to the generous amount of natural light provided by existing east-facing full-height windows. This approach also served to soften and add warmth to the café’s overall aesthetic, contrasting its ‘cooler’ material palette. To minimise cost, reconditioned furniture and decorations were used. Finishes were also expressed in their raw state wherever possible to keep in the same spirit of these reconditioned pieces and reduce cost.
Text by the architect
PROJECT GALLERY
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Architect : SML Architects
Client : Shaorou Cafe
Area : 150 m²
Project Location : Kuching | Sarawak
Year : 2023 -
C&S Engineer : RSJ Engineering
Design Team : Arlene Chew | Mark Eng | Wong Qin Kae
Photography : Mark Eng | Sean Wee | Wong Qin Kae -
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