OUR SHARED CULTURAL CAPITAL
HOSPITALITY WORKS
We engage with hospitality environments as complex social, spatial, and operational systems, rather than as isolated interior “fit-outs.” Across cafés, wine bars, restaurants, and retail hybrids, the practice applies principles from hospitality architecture, environmental psychology, and service design to support both guest experience and business performance.
For us this is an interdisciplinary practice, integrating architectural spatiality with operational dynamics and human-centered environmental psychology. This methodology addresses the multifaceted demands of cafés, wine bars, restaurants, retail hybrids, and multi-venue complexes, where guest experience, service efficiency, and commercial viability must converge.
Rooted in evidence, the studio's work emphasises systems thinking: calibrating circulation, acoustics, lighting, and back-of-house infrastructure to support diverse typologies and day-part operations. Through strategic collaborations with operational specialists, designs transcend aesthetics to deliver resilient, high-performing hospitality environments.
Cafés & Coffee Bars
In café and coffee-bar typologies, hospitality architecture prioritises brand awareness, guest circulation, queue management, and visibility of offer, supported by carefully choreographed service routes and ergonomic counter design. Spatial strategies draw on research into third-place culture and workplace hospitality, balancing high-throughput zones for grab-and-go with micro-environments suited to longer dwell times, remote working, and informal meetings.
Back-of-house layouts are conceived as production infrastructures, where storage, preparation areas, and delivery interfaces are aligned with lean operations and foodservice efficiency. This operational lens minimises congestion at peak dayparts, allowing environmental comfort, acoustic control, and biophilic elements to perform their role in shaping customer satisfaction and repeat visitation.
Restaurants & Dining Rooms
Restaurant and dining-room design is situated within broader discourse on hospitality design, guest journey mapping, and spatial storytelling. Dining areas, kitchen, and pass are treated as a single service ecosystem, where capacity planning, table mix, and server routes are calibrated to balance experiential quality with revenue per seat hour.
Environmental parameters such as acoustic absorption, layered lighting, and thermal comfort are deployed to support multiple dayparts and modes of use, from breakfast service to tasting menus and private events. This aligns with contemporary hospitality architecture research that emphasises flexibility, adaptable ambience, and the orchestration of sensory cues to enhance perceived hospitality value.
Multi-venue Hospitality & Mixed-Use
In hotels, members’ clubs, and large mixed-use buildings, hospitality design organizes restaurants, public areas, and facilities. Circulation, signage, and zoning shape clear guest routes and link kitchens, storage, and service areas for smooth operations. Working with hospitality consultants and managers brings in operational benchmarks, brand strategy, and asset management. The result is a unified approach where space, service flow, and commercial performance are designed together using evidence and practical criteria.
Retail, Deli, & Hybrid Hospitality Spaces
Hybrid formats—such as delis, bottle shops, bakeries, and concept stores—are interpreted through the lens of mixed-use hospitality architecture and experiential retail. In these settings, display, tasting, and seating zones are integrated to support omnichannel customer journeys, blurring boundaries between retail consumption, on-site dining, and brand storytelling.
Back-of-house and logistics planning follows principles from retail operations and supply-chain design, ensuring efficient deliveries, storage, and stock rotation without compromising front-of-house ambience. This systems-based approach allows hybrid venues to function as both commercial platforms and social infrastructures, consistent with research on place-making and community-oriented hospitality design.
Wine Bars & Cocktail Venues
Wine bars and cocktail venues are approached as experience-led hospitality spaces where atmosphere, lighting design, and acoustic performance directly influence perceived value and length of stay. Here, hospitality architecture foregrounds bar configuration, sightlines, and display systems, using spatial zoning and environmental cues to differentiate intimate seating clusters from more socially extrovert zones.
Bar infrastructure is planned using operational modelling borrowed from food and beverage management, with attention to mise-en-place, back-bar ergonomics, circulation for staff, and cellar access. This integration of operational design and spatial composition supports consistent service delivery, enables high-quality beverage programmes, and reinforces brand identity through materiality and lighting typologies.
