Café Sausalito / Private Client / Interior Design / 2020
As a disappearing craft, pebble wash is in danger of extinction and only a number of aged sifus know the technique well. Deeply rooted in the city's identity and ever-present in collective memories as a popular material used in 60s, 70s and 80s across public spaces of Hong Kong and Southern China, pebble wash displays not only aesthetic but also social value. Due to it’s malleable nature, designers decided to introduce curves to otherwise orthogonal interiors. Applied to all interior walls enclosing bar, kitchen and toilets it brings an almost tectonic quality, being a solid seem-like continuous volume running through the space and becoming the anchor of the café.
Lilac tiles applied only to columns rhythmically run through the space of the café, celebrating load bearing structural elements of the building rather than trying to deny them and connecting to city’s urban fabric’s feature – pastel coloured tile façade cladding. This approach is evident in other elements too, where imperfections and nature of building’s elements are left to express themselves and simply exist. That is, a plaster wall from the previous fit out with visible pencil markings, original floor finish or leftover granite tiles from a previous project and table tops created from discarded stone samples.
The rigidness and coldness of lilac tiles and brushed stainless steel is mindfully balanced here with contrasting soft edges, tactility and rawness of warm tone pebble wash and OSB furniture. Offering a location-specific, fresh and distinctive interior attempting to bring forgotten crafts back to the presence and more ambitiously, to the future, in a new innovative way.
Design Team: Natasza Minasiewicz, Jennifer Hu
General Contractor: Chung Shing Contracting
Press: Design Anthology, Architektura Murator
