Project Name: Si-Pu Nabe

Designer (Design company): Golucci International Design

Design team: Lee Hsuheng,  Zhao Shuang,  Ji Wen

Client: Si-Pu Nabe co., Ltd.

Location: Shanghai China

Built area: 750m2

Completion (date): 2016.11

Photographer: Lu Haha

This hotpot restaurant is located in Tianshan area of Shanghai which receives many rave reviews on the professional website of consumers and is ranked TOP 7 among all the restaurants of shanghai for its distinctive environment.

When you take a glance from the entrance, you would probably think it is a SPA club rather than a restaurant. In order to create a comfortable atmosphere to make the guest feel relaxed at home, the restaurant provides disposable slippers once they set foot for dining. The designers establish the shoe cabinet area at the entrance to store shoes and install the floor heating system in the restaurant to warm the feet of customers.

Only private rooms exist in the whole restaurant, and not the open dining area in the hall. For the 27 private rooms, it includes two-people rooms for lovers, four-people rooms for friends and ten-people rooms for families. Different kinds of rooms can meet customers’ different needs.

The designer mainly created small, exquisite and comfortable spaces because the restaurant is for  family and friend get-togethers rather than business banquets. Generally, for the layout of restaurants, we set the private rooms along the walls and the windows, and the central area is opened for dining as the hall. In view of the preference for the window seats and the private rooms, and so as to satisfy most guests, the designers broke up the traditional layout mode. They want to make this area special like a forest by the way of installation art. 

To distinguish the central area and the traditional dining room area, the designers think over the enclosure tool and enclosure mode. They want to create a different dining experience by using a special screen. Through continuously refining and adjusting, the semi-enclosed spaces are eventually formed and decorated by different hues of wood stripes which are curved on the top. This gives an artistic expression and turns the whole space into a more rhythmic and flexible feeling.

The dining spaces possesses different sizes and privacy degrees. The restaurant even chooses two different kinds of furniture: tatami and table/chair for the different requirements.

Movement in the restaurant is straight and regular, while the spaces are disposed staggerly. The different sizes of square wood floor and the strip lights highlights the main areas, like the dining space and sashimi bar. The strip lights look like vapor rising from the floor which makes the costumers feel as if they are dining in a forest fairyland above the clouds.