Fumihiko Sano Studio creates cedar-lined chocolate cafe in Kyoto
Fumihiko Sano Studio has created a cafe and store for San Francisco chocolatier Dandelion Chocolate, which occupies a century-old home in Kyoto, Japan.
Dandelion Chocolate is a small-batch bean-to-bar craft chocolate maker from San Francisco that has cafes dotted throughout the US and Japan.
The model’s newest Kyoto department is situated on a quiet avenue within the metropolis’s Ichinenzaka neighbourhood.
Shortlisted within the restaurant and bar class of the 2019 Dezeen Awards, the 200-square-metre cafe is organized over two flooring of a 100-year-old timber-framed home.
It includes a cacao bar the place prospects can order pairings of alcohol with chocolate desserts, a store and a conventional Japanese courtyard backyard.
The self-titled studio of Tokyo architect Fumihiko Sano, which was charged with growing the cafe’s interiors, opted to make use of cedarwood as the principle materials for the mission.
“Contemplating the parallels between craft chocolate and cedar, each require genuine craftsmanship and thoroughly chosen pure components – so I made the choice to put cedar on the centre of supplies used for this mission,” mentioned Sano, who started his profession as a Sukiya-Daiku – a carpenter for conventional teahouses.
“Cedarwood can be one of many fundamental supplies of Japanese structure.”
The inside of the constructing was utterly renovated years in the past, making it unimaginable for the studio to know precisely what it might have initially regarded like. Nonetheless, Sano’s redesign options the constructing’s unique uncovered beams and columns.
“My plan was to revive the ambiance of the standard Kyoto to which this constructing used to belong, whereas on the similar time creating an informal, open area paying homage to San Francisco, the place this model was born,” he mentioned.
“The inside wanted to be recreated as if it had by no means gone.”
Clients enter the cafe through the store area, strolling previous a espresso bar via to a foliage-filled courtyard wrapped with tall panels of glazing. A hall leads from right here to the cacao bar that is located on the rear of the shop.
Right here workers serve chocolate dessert and drink pairings from a counter lined with vertical planks of 700 – 900 millimetre-wide Yoshino cedarwood.
A large staircase close by takes prospects as much as the primary ground the place extra seating is situated.
“The shop is designed to make you are feeling you might be in a dynamic open area,” mentioned Sano. “The ground plan is laid out to offer reinforcement to the constructing the place wanted..”
“It’s my pleasure to offer a brand new objective to a constructing that has stood there for multiple hundred years. Might it thrive for an additional hundred, full of recent recollections.”
Fumihiko Sano Studio has beforehand an set up made up of Muji shelving items and a wood-lined members membership in Paris.
Picket posts and beams body shows at Tokyo store by Fumihiko Sano
Different sweet-treat shops embrace Mast Brothers in New York, which options stripped-back interiors that enable guests to view the chocolate-making course of and Glace et Chocolat in Tokyo, which boasts stacked-soil partitions that resemble layers of cake.