Spaces

THOMAS HEATHERWICK carves out a ‘chapel’ in Cape Town. MUTI RANDOLPH connects physical and virtual retail. CENTRE POMPIDOU puts play on the agenda. Step inside the great indoors.

HOSPITALITY

A Japanese restaurant brings Zen to China’s far north

CHANGCHUN – Nothing better demonstrates the growing prosperity and sophistication of China than Setsugekka Japanese Cuisine, a restaurant whose upscale aesthetics rival those of its counterparts in Tokyo. And it’s located not in one of the major eastern cities, as one would expect, but in Changchun, China’s most northerly provincial capital. The city of eight million was laid out by the Japanese to serve as the administrative centre of Manchukuo, a puppet state established in 1932, and is now a hub of the automobile industry. Given the brutal

history of Japan’s occupation of this region, it’s even more remarkable that the smartest restaurant in town should be an expression of traditional Japanese values.

Tianwen Sun, principal of Shanghai Hip-Pop Architectural Decoration Design, found inspiration in the northern climate and in haiku, poems that compress the experience of nature, joy and sadness. ‘For top interior designers, perfection of technique has already become a given,’ says Sun. ‘What makes one’s work outperform another’s is the vision and understanding of culture that contains greatness in simplicity.’ He and his colleague, Xindi Cao, specialize in hospitality projects; here they used a few simple materials – glass, tatami mats, paint and light – to transport diners to a world far removed from the everyday. They captured a sense of harmony in ultra-clear glass engraved with snow flakes and cherry blossom, bands of blue LEDs, and the black background of the sushi counter.

Setsugekka has a total floor area of 1300 m 2 ; three levels are above ground and one is below. Sun designed the client’s first restaurant and built a relationship of trust. In Changchun, he was given a free hand within the tight budget, and the only requirement was to provide 160 seats. The Chinese love to entertain family, friends and business partners in private rooms, so many of the spaces are divided up, and the result is an air of intimacy that belies the size of the restaurant. Its name has various meanings, and these find expression in the different levels. The ground floor has a dramatic entry – with the receptionist at the end of a long platform – and a

concealed area for food preparation, while the first floor contains the kitchen and the largest private room, and suggests a flower. Another floor up, visitors find nine private rooms on a level that evokes moonlight. The basement floor includes small booths and conveys the idea of snow.

‘The most beautiful and romantic image in the north is the moment when it starts snowing,’ says Sun. ‘At that point the world is silent, and we wanted to freeze that moment in the space.’ Changes of colour

and lighting betoken a cool outdoors and a cosy interior. The façade is pure theatre: a tall entry slot pierces a windowless cube. The lower part glows with an icy blue that segues into a warm orange, giving diners, coming in on a winter night, the feeling that they are clustered around a fire. Private rooms are screened off by walls of glass that mimic the snow falling on the city. – MW hippop-sh.cn

Setsugekka marries Japanese cuisine with Chinese sensibilities; spaces are divided, for instance, to accommodate the Chinese preference for private dining.

MUTI RANDOLPH’s generative surfaces connect physical and virtual retail at Melissa

NEW YORK CITY – The Melissa flagship in New York City, having relocated from Greene Street to a larger retail space in SoHo, is a dynamic jungle of irregular geometries infused with layers of reflection and abstract moving imagery. In fascinating flux, the entrance to the shoe store is ‘a pyramidal, kaleidoscopic funnel that sucks people from Broadway into the store’, as its designer, Muti Randolph, puts it. Like the Brazilian brand’s recent Covent Garden showroom, also created by Randolph, the SoHo space has a main entrance and one room that accommodates installations, including interactive works that are driven by visitors’ movements and a Kinect sensor. The imagery that Randolph designed for the store’s August opening – and for segueing between seasonal installations by various artists – recalls a drawing by composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, here set into motion like music, the medium in which Randolph’s work has its roots.

Although Randolph is a pioneer of interactive interiors, he uses hi-tech interactivity with increasing restraint. Many surfaces in the new flagship are not interactive but generative, manufactured by a computer in