Tag Archives: restaurant

Giant Turtle-shaped beach restaurant gives diners the epitome of nature-inspired and themed decor

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Nestled along the coastline, the Turtle Restaurant emerges as an architectural and artistic marvel, paying homage to the ocean’s most graceful creature—the sea turtle. Crafted entirely from bamboo, this sustainable and awe-inspiring structure seamlessly blends with the beach vibe, creating a unique and harmonious dining experience.

Designer: Thilina Liyanage

The entire restaurant is like a puzzle of smaller geometric fragments, meticulously joined together to resemble a giant turtle. Bamboo, chosen as the primary construction material, not only reflects the local availability of this resource but also highlights its eco-friendly nature. Known for its sturdiness and biodegradability, bamboo aligns perfectly with the vision of sustainability, offering both strength and natural aesthetics.

The main entrance, located at the back of the turtle, seamlessly connects to the forest, creating a pathway that intertwines with nature. Additionally, two side entries welcome guests directly from the beach, providing a smooth transition between the restaurant and its coastal surroundings.

The turtle’s shell serves as the main space, sheltering the restaurant and evoking a sense of awe. The central portion of the shell is open, serving as a skylight that bathes the interior in natural light, creating an open and airy atmosphere. The shell extends into outdoor decks on the sides, offering patrons a complete outdoor experience and stunning views of the surrounding forest.

The bamboo arches play a dual role, serving as structural supports for the shell while also adding a touch of drama and privacy to different sections of the restaurant. Tilted arches on the sides create a perception of grandeur, enhancing the visual appeal and making the space appear larger than life.

To cater to varied preferences, the Turtle Restaurant offers three types of seating—lounge chairs, cane chairs, and regular cushioned wooden chairs. Guests can choose their preferred seating option based on comfort and the desired vibe, ensuring a personalized dining experience.

While the restaurant already boasts a captivating design, the addition of a stairway leading to the inside of the turtle’s head could offer a unique vantage point for patrons. This feature not only enhances the overall experience but also provides a photogenic spot for capturing the beauty of the beach from a different angle.

As the sun sets, the Turtle Restaurant transforms into a magical space with the help of recessed ground lights and pendant lights. The subtle illumination creates a warm and inviting ambiance, making it an ideal setting for a premium beach bar experience.

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This Resto-Bar Nestled On A Cliff’s Edge In Goa, India Has Two Massive Nests Perched On Top Of It

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I’ve spent much time in the beautiful beach town of Goa, India, which truly has a special place in my heart. Coconut trees, salty air, restless waves, and red sandy paths adorn the region. The architecture is a mix of old and new, with traces of the Portuguese influence interwoven with modern Indian-influenced structures. Nestled in the vibrant and lush tropical area of North Goa is a beautiful new restaurant dubbed Como Agua. It provides patrons with stunning views across the Vagator cliffs, allowing them to admire the mesmerizing sea from an impressive elevated location.

Designer: Otherworlds

Designed by the architects at Otherworlds, Como Agua is tucked away on an elevated perch, offering the restaurant a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding landscape and sea. The bar is adorned with two large nests at the top, making it a truly unique and innovative structure. The oversized nests give the restaurant an Amazonian vibe, offering the impression that you’ve walked into the tropics.

It occupies 3750 square meters, and is a vivacious open-air design built from bamboo and Lantana camera – an invasive flowering shrub that torments the local flora and fauna. The founder of Otherworlds, Arko Saha said that the plant “has invaded over 40 percent of the Western Ghats, a total of 13 million hectares of Indian landscape. Arriving in India as an ornamental plant in the early 1800s, lantana has escaped from gardens and taken over entire ecosystems.”

It’s quite interesting to see how they’ve utilized a shrub species that was wreaking havoc on the floral fauna and transformed it into a harmonious and integral element of the building. The architectural team wrapped the Lantana camera around the metal railings, bar, partitions, and canopies to build unique interlaced structures that look as if they’ve been built by weaverbirds!

The team says that –  “The weavers are social birds, usually nesting and feeding in colonies. They collect all sorts of natural materials like twigs, fibers, and leaves to weave a membrane that acts as their nest, usually hanging from the branch of a tree. Materials used for building nests include fine leaf fibers, grass, and twigs. Many species weave very fine nests using thin strands of leaf fiber, though some, like the buffalo-weavers, form massive untidy stick nests in their colonies, which may have spherical woven nests within.”

The post This Resto-Bar Nestled On A Cliff’s Edge In Goa, India Has Two Massive Nests Perched On Top Of It first appeared on Yanko Design.

This chair concept for fast-casual restaurants comes with a coat hanger and bag tray

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The way we eat outside has been changing over the past years, and fine dining and fast food are no longer the only choices available. In many parts of the world, “fast-casual” has become a popular option that combines the speed and price of fast food establishments with the quality of full-service bistros. Despite being a category in its own right, the furniture used in fast-casual restaurants doesn’t actually take into account the specific needs of this class of customers and is instead meant for either fast-food chains or full-service establishments. This chair design concept tries to break the mold by introducing a piece of furniture that caters specifically to fast-casual customers who need to hang their coats or keep their bags but can never find such a place with regular restaurant chairs.

Designer: Zhiyuan (Frank) Fang

Fast-food restaurant chairs are often made from plastic, designed to be cheap, easy to move around, and often uninspiring. Customers here are often in a hurry, anyway, so they don’t care so much for the things they’re carrying, presuming they’re even carrying some. Fine dining chairs, in sharp contrast, are elegant and a little more expensive in order to match the restaurant’s ambiance. They, too, don’t have convenient features for keeping your things, because restaurants often have available storage for those near the table or by the entrance. That leaves fast-casual diners to fend for their own most of the time, often resulting in awkward displays of jackets or even forgotten bags or purses.

The RACK Chair design was conceptualized with fast-casual restaurants specifically in mind. While the chair might find some uses in other diner types as well, the aesthetics, materials, and features truly shine in this middle-ground of the catering industry. It’s made from a variety of wooden materials, including birch, pine, walnut, and ash, giving it a bit of style and fine character. At the same time, however, the minimalist design and flat-pack-friendly construction are ideal for mass production and use.

The real distinctive parts of the RACK chair are the integrated coat hanger on the backrest and the storage tray under the seat. While it’s certainly possible to drape coats, jackets, and other clothing over the back of most chairs, they also have a tendency to slip off, sometimes unbeknownst to the owner. The tray offers a secure space to put in purses, document folios, and small bags for each reach, while also blocking unauthorized access from behind.

Some might downplay the impact that these two simple features can bring, but knowing that there will always be a place for your jacket, coat, bags, and things adds tremendous peace of mind and convenience. That in turn, will surely make the experience and location memorable, increasing the likelihood that you’ll be a repeat customer. After all, the last thing you need is to stress over your stuff when all you really want is to enjoy an affordable and delicious meal.

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First underwater restaurant in Europe brings you on a culinary journey under the sea

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Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe

Revenge travel is a concept that began last year in the middle of the pandemic as some economies started to open. With over a year of being cooped up at home, many people have vowed to go out and travel with a vengeance. It is a thing as we see these days, people of all ages and from all walks of life have started to enjoy traveling again.

We’re not saying it is entirely safe, but we somehow believe we’re already at the tail-end of the pandemic. We’re hoping for the best, so we can be free to go out without fear of contracting the dreaded virus. We can’t wait to travel not just in our own town but also to other countries. Sure, we can already do that, and if given a chance, we’d travel to Norway right away and head on to Lindesnes and see what the buzz is about this underwater restaurant that opened three years ago.

Designer: Snøhetta

Under - Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant

Aptly named “Under” for obvious reasons, this one-of-a-kind restaurant is something that can beat Krusty Krab. Of course, there’s really no such thing, but fans of the cartoon show will probably remember the fictional fast-food restaurant when they first learn about Under. We highly doubt burgers will be served though at Europe’s first underwater restaurant, but we’re looking forward to sumptuous meals while surrounded by naturally-abundant marine life.

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe 10

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe 9

This used to be such a dream, but we know there have been similar efforts in the past. This one aims to fully integrate the structure into a marine environment, and over time, we know it will happen, and there will be a generation that won’t notice it’s man-made. Designed by Norweigan architectural and design firm Snøhetta , the Under restaurant is made to provide an extraordinary experience to the diners and guests.

Under - Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant

Snøhetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe

The teeming life underwater may not be aware of what’s been done, but eventually, the sea animals may also learn to live with it. Some are also expected to inhabit the concrete shell like an artificial reef where some marine life can find shelter. The structure itself comes with very thick concrete walls that can withstand both shock and pressure. It boasts a large eleven-meter-wide and 3.4-meter-tall horizontal window where diners can enjoy the beautiful panoramic view of the seabed. Even without those delectable meals, you can simply enjoy the view in different weather conditions and seasons.

Under - Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant

Under - Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant

“Under” is part of a 34-meter long monolithic form, from a surface breaking into the water to a seabed five meters below. With sea conditions changing from calm to stormy waters, the structure is built to last and withstand the test of time and the natural environment, especially since Lindesnes is popular for intense weather conditions. In contrast to the rough and rugged structure, the interior of the underwater restaurant offers some sense of regularity, rhythm, and order.

Under - Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant

Under - Europe’s First Underwater Restaurant

The ceiling panels are beautiful with the sunset-colored fabric you would be seeing as you go down the stairs into the restaurant. The woven panels offer a calm and serene look almost to the whole structure that is not intimidating. It’s cozy, elegant, and modern, especially as you descend and reach the foyer clad in beautiful oak, extending into the restaurant’s interior that welcomes guests warmly to their seats.

The dining room can comfortably accommodate 35 to 50 guests as they enjoy cuisine using locally sourced produce. The fine dining experience is made possible thanks to a 16-person kitchen team led by Head Chef Nicolai Ellitsgaard. The Danish chef and his expert team prepare meals that focus on sustainable wildlife capture. As a result, every dining experience can be unique and exciting because you’ll never know what is outside the vast window.

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe

Snøhetta also worked with Harman, a local carpentry workshop, for an exclusive furniture series. The chair alone used in the restaurant is an object to behold because its continuous form may remind you of branches with the stems and angles. The structure is solid, just like the concrete shell but without compromising the beauty of nature. Each chair is made with traditional handicraft methods, so you know there is beauty in the rawness of the products.

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe 5

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe 5

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe 6

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe 7

Snohetta Under Underwater Restaurant in Norway Europe 8

The post First underwater restaurant in Europe brings you on a culinary journey under the sea first appeared on Yanko Design.

Modular table and chair setup lets you have a safe and clean dining experience

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While a lot of businesses and restaurants are now going back to normal after two years of pandemic restrictions, this doesn’t mean that the COVID-19 virus has gone away. For those who are still concerned about dining out safely during times like these, the current set-ups with a lot of restaurants may not be safe enough, even though establishments reassure customers that they sanitize and keep things clean. A couple of designers have created a concept product that may reassure customers still concerned about dining out safely.

Designers: Pin-Yi Lee and You-Hao Wu

We all want to have a safe and clean experience when eating outside of our homes. But sometimes, it’s hard to know when a space has been sanitized already, and these partitions that some establishments use can be inconvenient and actually affects the flow of air. So having something that can solve these issues can be of big help for the restaurant industry and customers that want to dine out already.

The Monomode is something that can work for public eating spaces, even without the threat of the virus. It has a modular kind of structure that can integrate partitions into the furniture but not make it so obstructive. There is a foot pedal that allows you to raise and lower the partitions as needed, like if the person dining next to you is not someone you know. The modules also have cleaning blades inside so it will be more convenient for restaurant workers to clean it after someone uses the table and partition.

The chairs are also part of the module. When a customer sees that the back of the chair is folded, it means that it has already been cleaned. The idea is to use simple behavioral patterns to indicate things like disinfection to give people more confidence about whether or not the space has been cleaned. Since this concept is modular, you can set it up any which way you like it, depending on the space available.

The post Modular table and chair setup lets you have a safe and clean dining experience first appeared on Yanko Design.

UK McDonald’s net-zero carbon restaurant tries to make the environment a bit healthier

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You might have guilty feelings when chowing down on that hamburger, but one McDonald’s restaurant in the UK might at least let you feel good about staying green while you’re there.

Fast-food and health are two words that never really got along well with one another, and it isn’t just about humans’ bodily health either. Sometimes worse than other restaurants because of their nature and their processes, fast-food chains have also become perilous to the health of the planet, particularly through their net carbon emissions. As one of the world’s biggest culprits, McDonald’s is trying to set an example and opened the first net-zero restaurant in the UK, though it still comes up short of being net-zero in the true sense of the word.

Designers: Scurr Architects and AEW Architects for McDonald’s

It’s no longer enough to just say that you’re using recycled materials for cups or utensils these days. Those are important first steps, of course, but not enough to earn you a “net-zero” badge for your building. For that, you’ll need to significantly reduce your carbon emissions in almost every aspect, including the construction, operation, and demolition of the establishment.

McDonald’s Market Drayton branch in the UK tries to check off a few of those boxes, particularly in the materials they used. Wall insulation is made from sheep’s wool, while parking lot kerbstones are each made from 182 recycled plastic bottles. Even the signage is made from McDonald’s own coffee beans as part of the company’s “circular waste solution.” All of these while retaining the same familiar design of McDonald’s restaurants around the world, or at least in the UK.

The day-to-day operations of the restaurant are also almost zero, with power being provided by two on-site wind turbines and 92 square meters (990 square feet) of solar panels. Strictly speaking, however, the restaurant can’t be considered truly net-zero because it doesn’t take into account consumption-based emissions, according to Dezeen.

It’s still an important step forward for the company as well as the UK’s net-zero carbon buildings thrust, especially considering how much foot traffic and how many customers a single McDonald’s branch gets on a single day. That said, it’s also just one in tens of thousands of McDonald’s locations around the world that still have to adopt the fast-food chain’s sustainable programs. It’s just the first step, of course, and McDonald’s plans to move forward in the years to come, including vegan, plant-based menus by 2025.

Photos courtesy of Anthony Devlin/PA.

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This pelican-beak restaurant overlooks a cliff with an absolutely stunning view

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It’s probably because I haven’t traveled around a lot in the past year and a half, but Thilina Liyanage‘s renders are looking increasingly realistic and awe-striking… and I can’t blame myself for feeling that rather lost feeling of wanderlust. Sri Lanka-based Liyanage’s been responsible for creating some of the most awe-striking architectural designs that relate beautifully to their surroundings – like a jagged cabin sitting upon a rocky beach, or a goldfish-shaped bar overlooking an ocean. This time, Liyanage’s design gives you a birds-eye view of a valley, while being shaped like a bird’s beak!

The Sky Restaurants, as they’re called, cantilever off the precipice of a mountain, giving you a certain thrill as you dine. Its design takes cues from a pitcher-plant, using a boat-like base that projects from the slope, with a slightly raised roof to protect you from the elements while also giving you a stunning view of the mountainous terrain in front of and below you. Like a lot of Liyanage’s designs, the Sky Restaurant uses curved bamboo pieces, giving it a distinctly tropical feeling that does set up a contrast against the mountains… but then again, look at it from above and it almost looks like fairy-lights strung around the mountain!

Designer: Thilina Liyanage

Taco Bell is working with Beyond Meat to create a new plant-based protein

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Starting later this year, Taco Bell will begin testing a Beyond Meat-based dish at its restaurants. The chain didn’t say what said dish will look like but claimed it won’t be the usual planet-based substitution you’ve seen from other restaurants sinc...

LG Display’s transparent OLED puts a screen between you and the sushi chef

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As per its annual tradition, LG Display is preparing to show off some new display tech demos for CES 2021, with the latest focus set on showing where transparent OLED may fit in the pandemic age. The Korean company is setting up a few physical demos...

Food trucks transform to help restaurants recover from the COVID-19 economic losses

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The limits that the COVID-19 pandemic has put on our lifestyles have been grim, yes. But keeping up with the designs coming out as a direct result of the 2020 pandemic has helped pass the time. Has it been a year already? Arguably, the industry in need of the most innovative designs is the restaurant industry. Some eye-catching designs have certainly risen to the top and been put to the test. Jungsoo Lee’s design, a modular reinterpretation of the food truck, incorporates a removable seating area for guests to enjoy their favorite restaurant’s food with the full “dine-in” experience they’ve come to cherish. The design could offer some peace of mind or inspiration for restaurant workers across the globe in need of some financial movement.

The crux of Lee’s design hinges on the pressure of restaurant owners paying rent on a monthly basis. With fewer diners, many restaurant-owners are finding themselves without the means to fund their dining spaces at the end of the month, and most are signed into year-long leases – an off-menu recipe for disaster. Lee figured that by designing a physical and transportable space for people to safely dine and for chefs to safely cook, then instead of signing into a year-long contract, food business owners could rent modular food trucks by the day and also provide safe, on-site dine-in services for guests.

Each truck in Lee’s design comes in two modules: the top part of the truck is meant for cooking and the bottom quarter of the truck detaches and forms the seating area. As designed right now, Lee incorporates foldable support pillars on the bottom of the electric truck design so that once the seating module is pulled out, the kitchen can stand even and elevated on rolling posts. Food trucks are a reasonable solution to the problems that restaurant owners face in the age of COVID-19 and, if you live in a city, chances are you’ve probably already seen a lot more of them dotting the streets in the past couple of months.

While food trucks are a smart option for some cities, the seating module might not be ideal for every city as presently designed. In warmer temperatures and more moderate climates, outdoor dining has been the most popular adjustment made during the age of COVID-19, but for colder cities like Chicago or London, outdoor dining isn’t so convenient. With heated tables and outdoor cabins being among some of the winning designs for restaurant owners facing financial trouble with fewer diners, the need for warmth in colder cities is still a top priority. In the same vein, by transitioning restaurant owner’s brick-and-mortar locations into on-the-road mobile food services with exposed seating areas, the uncertainty of a city’s ever-changing weather comes into play and chefs will have to cut the area space of their previous kitchen by a substantial amount. Thankfully, however, like the weather, the design of today is ever-changing and constantly evolving.

Designer: Jungsoo Lee