Project Description
The owner of this nouvelle barbecue restaurant in San Francisco’s
financial district says that the response to his eatery wouldn’t have
been so powerful without this dramatic transformation of the building.
“It’s kick-started his business,” says Joshua Aidlin, who was on the
project’s design team.
Built in 1914, the building occupies a small space between a historic masonry facade and a 1980s midrise building.
The designers used four primary elements to create a warm and
light-filled space: the canopy, a dynamic undulating ceiling
installation formed from MDF wood composite fin profiles; an agrarian
palette of rift-sawn oak and zinc; a neutral ribbon of white walls and
various elements that create an extension of space in the small dining
room; and a scrim — a translucent fabric — that filters and transforms
the natural light.
While the judges were impressed with the
canopy, they commented that “it’s really about the whole space, which
has a powerful anthropomorphic quality that draws you in.” One judge
said, “It feels like I’m relating to something that breathes.”
“Some people go ‘wow’ at the ceiling sculpture, and some don’t,” Aidlin says. “It’s a metaphor for the smoke and the bones."