"Under Clouds, Galleria Branch" is the second Yunnan cuisine restaurant designed by CPLUS for the Under Clouds brand, which occupies 340 square meters and is located in Galleria – Instreet (hereinafter referred to as Instreet) in Chaoyang District in the northeast of Beijing. Due to the architectural strategy of breaking the monotonic internal space with "Doors" and wrapping the restaurant's façade by the sealed wall with a central floor-to-ceiling window, all the concepts have focused on establishing a warm connection with the city.
Natural Intimacy
The Instreet is enclosed by high-rise buildings on three sides without vehicle access. It is a sunken plaza designed for local residents that integrates leisure and commerce. The entire block uses a unified facade design with gray metal shutters and floor-to-ceiling window walls, for increasing the visual thematic connection and presenting a modern commercial atmosphere.
Designers replace the original façade with "red walls", making the entire restaurant unique and full of vitalities in the Instreet. The wall is divided horizontally by sunlight and shadow in the morning, showing different levels of red tone. Different tree shadows appear on the wall during different times.
Approaching the facade, seemingly you can smell the soil, feel the skin-like grainy texture of natural materials when you touch the wall.
One Window Away
Seeing inner space through the floor-to-ceiling window outside, the triple doors standstill in front of your sight. The same visual progression and focus are brought by the triple doors, but the focused scene of the exhibition is fixed. The frozen scene inside and the dynamic scene outside seem to correspond to the different regional temperaments between Yunnan and Beijing. Here and now, the distance is only one window away from each other.
"Gloomy" Inside, "Bright" Outside
Due to the inner space is much darker by the sealed facade, the design seizes the advantage of the existed physical conditions to create a different experience at the inner part. From the corridor to the center of the dining area, guests can directly feel the different atmospheres of the “inside and outside” and choose the preferable side according to their dining social demands.
“Seeing” Rhythm
Sitting in the inner central place of Under Clouds, the "triple door" occupies the horizontal field of vision, while the vertical line of sight is naturally focused on the front floor-to-ceiling window. The "triple door" allows space, which is monotonic in the first place, to write a rhythm, presenting an elegant, quiet temperament. The lines of the doorway and the wall together outline the sense of hierarchy and order of the space.
Focusing on the floor-to-ceiling window, you spontaneously recalled series of black and white scenes of the Katsura Imperial Villa which was photographed by Ishimoto Yasuhiro between 1953 and 1954. The Japanese Tatami Doors are opened one by one, finally, you see the scenery outside the window. This extreme sense of internal order and juxtaposed arrangement allows the line of sight to progress layer by layer, and finally focus on the one-window landscape.
The Inside-out Relationship of the Parallel Space
One can always have the view of the windows through the "doors" no matter which position he or she locates at. The central floor-to-ceiling window defines the sight focus between the inner and outer space. Therefore, a delicate, or to say subtle "inner and outer relationship" is formed by the scene and the line of sight.
The Use of simple and Natural Materials
At the beginning, CPLUS decided to use simple and natural materials, including as soil and steel plate and explore the modern technology, which relates to the expressiveness of the material, to present the "simple and elegant" quality of the entire space of Under Clouds restaurant eventually. The 50-centimeter-thick walls are made up by blocks at the first step. And then they are wrapped by soil transported from Yunnan. The delicate feeling of graininess makes the wall present a skin-like natural texture. The use of steel pates in the interior does not account for much, but the use of parts of the final presentation are somewhat unexpected.
The inner dining area is separated by a perforated steel plate, helping people on both sides to get a visual linkage. While meeting the privacy requirements of the guests, the staff in restaurant can sense the status of the guests through the hollow holes. These tiny countless holes also eliminate the depressive feeling coming from the steel plate. The two holes in the hot-rolled steel plate of the back kitchen form the possibility of connection between the diners and the chef. These holes broke the enclosed back kitchen space, providing the chance for the chef to view how the guests enjoy the food made by the chef. The unconsciousness communication makes the connection more interesting and subtle.
The Light Achieves the Beauty of the Shadow
"Beauty does not exist in objects, but exists in the ripples and lightness of the shadows which produced by things and objects. Without shadows, there is no beauty." From the book "The Praise of Shadows" by the Japanese writer Tanizaki Junichiro. These few words may be the most appropriate expression of the "gloomy beauty" in Under Clouds restaurant. The arrangement and debugging of footlights and spotlights make the red wall form a gentle and quiet appearance, a sense of agility reflected from the black steel plate. The beauty lies in the echoes between the lights and shadows.
In addition, the lighting team experimented and created a "light environment" based on the weather, time period and the change of the time. Diners can enjoy the moment in a comfortable lighting atmosphere, whether it's a dinner, a leisurely afternoon tea or a casual night of drinking.
