Izumi's latest Copenhagen restaurant is designed to reflect its Nordic-Japanese menu

Pan-Projects and Mok Architects drew upon Nordic and Japanese aesthetics to design this restaurant in Copenhagen, which features oak surfaces, translucent screens and paper lanterns.

Izumi is a Danish restaurant chain, which serves Japanese food with Nordic influences. Its latest outlet occupies a busy street corner in Copenhagen's northern suburb of Charlottenlund.

The 120-square-metre restaurant has an L-shaped plan with windows that wrap around two sides.

An open kitchen and small dining area occupy one side of the restaurant, while a larger dining room, customer toilets and a small backyard for parking occupies the other.

Copenhagen-based architecture studio Pan- Projects was invited by Izumi, along with Mok Architects, to create a new spatial identity for the chain.

Izumi's owners wanted the restaurant's interior to reflect its Nordic-Japanese menu.

"Japan and the Nordic countries have a rich history of cultural interactions," explained Pan-Projects' founders Yurioko Yaga and Kazumasa Takada.

"Especially in the field of design, there are many examples that are rooted originally in Japanese culture yet developed uniquely in the land of the Nordic region."

In the restaurant, this is reflected in features such as the curved Scandinavian oak panels that surround the open kitchen.

According to the architects, the modular panels adhere to a traditional Japanese dimension system used to make Japanese tatami mats.

The panels' slight curve is inspired by steam-bent Scandinavian furniture.

"As a design strategy, we adopted Japanese spatial characters to the Scandinavian context, aiming to fabricate a new standard of Japan-Scandinavian design interactions," Yaga and Takada said.

A series of translucent screens made from multiple layers of sanded polycarbonate sheets are a contemporary riff on traditional Japanese paper sliding doors.

Isamu Noguchi, who was a New York-based Japanese sculptor, designed the Akari lanterns that hang above the tables, while the dining chairs are designed by London-based Japanese design studio Mentsen.

This is the third Izumi branch that Pan-Projects has completed, joining two other outposts in Copenhagen's Frederiksberg and Allerød neighbourhoods. Construction is scheduled to start on another location in Vesterbrogade in 2020.

The restaurant is the latest in a string of eateries that blend Danish and Japanese design sensibilities.

In Tokyo, OEO Studio referenced Danish cabinetry and Japanese gardens for the design of restaurant Inua, while Norm Architects designed a sushi restaurant in London that features gong-like Japanese lamps and wide-plank Danish flooring.

Photography is by Yuta Sawamura.

---

Project credits:

Architecture firms: Pan-Projects and Mok Architects
Architects: Yuriko Yagi, Kazumasa Takada, Miki Morita, Suguru Kobayashi
Construction and millworks: Indretningsfabrikken

The post Izumi's latest Copenhagen restaurant is designed to reflect its Nordic-Japanese menu appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/2sJeMmW

Turner Prize nominees form a collective so they all win

The surprise announcement, made live on the BBC last night by Vogue editor Edward Enninful, was a result of the four shortlisted artists – Oscar Murillo, Tai Shani, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock – writing to the jury to ask the prize be split amongst all of them, to make a statement about unity in a divisive era.

Read more

from It's Nice That https://ift.tt/34ObOf2

How art holds AI to account

Mainstream conversations around artificial intelligence, while sometimes characterised by a rhetoric of scientific progress, often deal with anxieties related to the tech. Critiquing its shortcomings is not enough, however. Art can help shape the future of artificial intelligence by exposing its limitations and tendencies to further systemic inequalities.

Read more

from It's Nice That https://ift.tt/34NFnNz

AI art and frictions in translation: it's the female-focused December Double Click

For our ninth Double Click of the year, we turn to the girls of the coding world to see the exciting designs they bring to the table. If you haven’t been keeping up with the series so far, Double Click is our monthly round-up of some of the best digital designs we’ve stumbled upon over the previous four weeks.

Read more

from It's Nice That https://ift.tt/2YoMD0l

Nir Meiri turns cabbage leaves into paper-like lampshades

London-based studio Nir Meiri has teamed up with designer Vaidehi Thakkar to create a series of lamps with shades made from red cabbage leaves.

The delicate veins and marbled colouring of the leaves shine through when a light source is applied.

This organic aesthetic is contrasted with a simple, black and golden base housing the electronics and the actual light source, which projects upwards onto the shade.

The Veggie Lights come in two versions. In the first, the rugged, uneven shape of the leaves is left untouched, while in the other it is trimmed off to form gentle sloping curves.

"The design itself was a long process of prototyping and understanding how the light will render this material in the best way," Meiri told Dezeen.

"The final object was a table lamp that gives the material the main stage while keeping the overall design elegant and sleek."

Thakkar developed the method at the heart of the product, in which vegetables are turned into a paper-like material she calls Fibre Flats.

To create it, the cabbage leaves are separated and soaked in a natural, anti-fungal material.

"We dry them until all the moisture is evaporated, using a mould that mimics the shape of the original red cabbage leaf. And then, we finish them off with a water-based, sustainable coating," explained Meiri.

"That means it will stay durable but it will not last forever. As any other natural material, it will 'age' over time and was not designed to last forever. It can be returned back to the earth as compost and easily replaced with a new shade but using the same base."

The Veggie Lights are the latest manifestation of Meiri's enduring fascination with organic materials, which has previously seen him turn both mycelium and seaweed into lampshades.

"I'm always inspired by what I see in nature – the best designer of all time," he said.

"Nature is an endless source of inspiration, colours and geometrics, and natural materials have so many applications. It's all about creating a functional piece of design without loosing the beauty of nature."

Elsewhere, lighting designs making use of organic matter have repurposed post-industrial beer and coffee waste as well as using living bacteria to generate electricity.

The post Nir Meiri turns cabbage leaves into paper-like lampshades appeared first on Dezeen.

from Dezeen https://ift.tt/2YfUsoS