The Rac project is composed by two entity, the Rac coffee and the Rac restaurant and wine bar. Those two places are located in the former French Concession of Shanghai. The Rac coffee is a small shop with a large window giving to the street who serve coffee to take away, the restaurant is located on the courtyard set back from the street. For our client the important element of this project was the mobility, the idea was to use the courtyard as a link between the two places. 

The Coffee shop on the street invite the costumer to enjoy there coffee on the courtyard where is located the restaurant. 

To offer more interaction and dynamic on the courtyard we designed the restaurant with large opening. Customers can seat inside and outside of the place, we also create an opening from the bar to the outside to allows customers ordering cocktails or finger food directly from the yard. Our goal is to activate and dynamise the yard and the street

For the restaurant we wanted something authentic, a feeling of a french house somewhere you feel at home, chill and cosy. The challenge was to not fall on a kitschy and caricatural copy of a french style. Our way to avoid that is to be honest with the materiality  and reveal the soul of the space using raw material like stone, concrete, metal, glass and wood.

To that we decide to keep exposed the existing concrete column with all their imperfection (old metal structure - nail - painting - hand writing...) all those imperfection are part of the history of this place and give him life. The floor is made with left over of luxurious marble from Italy, it also a way to give a second life to a material. The furniture are made in wood and some large table are directly sliced from huge trunk. Those huge table are an important element in the life of the project, it help to create interaction with people giving a very convivial and friendly atmosphere.