The Pixel Café
| Client | Confidential |
| Program | Interior Refurbishment (Food & Beverage) |
| Area | 220 m² |
| Status | Proposal |
| Year of Completion |
2012 |
The art frame is given a new twist and perspective by extruding it into a box, creating a pixelated wall, inspired by coffee bean hues.
The Pixel Café’s tradition of combining art and culture within its urban café spaces allows it to offer unique dining experiences to its customers. This has inspired the use of a ubiquitous element of artwork – the frame, to order its new café and its variety of programmes. Besides providing artwork with presence, the frame also informs its cultural identity. By extruding a frame’s contours, a box is formed, giving the frame a spatial dimension that can be used to order the Pixel Café’s different needs, while providing more canvas space for creative expression at the same time.
By combining this concept of frame and box with The Pixel Café’s primary specialty – coffee, the entire space becomes at once dynamic and familiar. The Pixel Café’s roots in coffee have inspired the exterior of these boxes by extracting the different hues that coffee is being transformed when roasted and crackled. From the green hues of raw coffee beans to the first brownish crack and finally ending in a charred full french roast, there is a vibrant transition of hues and tones. These tones are extracted and they form the color palette from which the muted exterior of these boxes are clothed and textured. Maintaining this palette is crucial to establishing a level of sophistication and restraint. However, the restraint is unleashed in the interiors of these boxes, being treated to an explosion of color and art in these boxes.
The new design proposal is an example of how our overall concept can be both generic and specific at the same time. The use of frames and boxes follows the original philosophy of “Art Boutique cafés“, which The Pixel Cafe started with and updates the idea of art to a more contemporary stage. Locational inspired motifs, cultural textures, artwork and even the customers all become part of this “living art” stage, giving character to the restaurant but yet establishing a consistent concept and identity with The Pixel Café.
