This project doubled the size of Cafe Javasti, an existing coffee shop in Seattle. Our design made the most of a tight budget by keeping as much of the existing space as we could. We left the rough cinder block walls and concrete floors exposed, and kept the existing barista station and back kitchen intact.
The new, larger space had an awkwardly flat proportion, and lacked intimacy. We solved this problem with a series of wooden screens, which define seating and service spaces in the coffee shop. The screens unify the new and old parts of the cafe, while separating an area of soft leather seating from the noisier open parts of the cafe. We cut several circular openings into the screens to accommodate light fixtures and structural elements passing through, and added a few as moments to peek through the screens to the materials or patrons beyond.