Commercial Project: Italian Restaurant in Moscow
In today’s post I want to share commercial project that I have recently worked on together with the architect Edoardo Rizzuti – Italian cafe in the famous business center Moscow-city. Some time ago I have written about how to design a unique cafe experience however, in this project we had to face several major challenges to make it work. Cafe was only a part of the business center lobby and there were several architectural and design elements that couldn’t be changed: we had to incorporate our cafe design into existing surroundings.
Our client wanted to see the flavour of Sicily – the guests when coming for lunch should distract from their work and plunge into relaxing and joyful atmosphere of the southern Italy.
The restaurant’s concept was inspired by the beautiful architecture of Sicily – the cities of Taormina, Palermo and Montreal. Like an Italian patio the restaurant will be a small cozy oasis in the center of the metropolis, where it will be possible to meet with friends, make a business agenda or arrange a small family dinner. Entrance to the restaurant will be decorated with two orange trees, which are so popular in Sicily.
The first step of the design process was making the floor plan and a simple concept rendering in Sketchup:
Arch is one of the most popular shapes in the architecture of Sicily. Placed around the perimeter of the restaurant, arches will create the necessary privacy, while not visually reducing the space. They will be decorated with orange Murano glass vases, connecting by color with orange trees. Tables in the center of the podium will be fenced off by a partition – a decorative wine bottle rack.
The ceiling will be decorated with a construction made of wooden beams – suspended plants and lamps will recreate the atmosphere of Italian courtyards and bring privacy and coziness to the space. We introduced pastel pink and blues to the colour scheme and overall the space started to look more inviting and charming.
After our concept in sketch up was ready and approved by the client we made more elaborate and detailed renderings using 3D Max.
What do you think about this design? Looking forward for your comments!
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