Our client was looking for a classy restaurant which could offer a relaxed, high level menu and service to local and international customers. The design proposal tries to re-create a Mediterranean atmosphere in the space: warm, soft, romantic, but escaping from the topics of the Mediterranean imagery. The result is a timeless and modern space that tries to blur the interior with the exterior terraces and these terraces with the amazing views of the OneOcean Club Port Vell.

CONCEPT The aim of the design is to enhance the views and to surround the customer with the specific landscape qualities of its location by the water. Sitting at the restaurant should be like sitting on a yacht deck staring at the sunset. The architecture of the building made us think of a pavilion by the water. Our design tries to enhance this idea of Mediterranean pavilion, a space that blurs interior space and exterior terraces, with just some vertical elements, a white sun-protecting lattice and the most incredible views around us.

SPACE By using glossy reflective surfaces to create the ceiling of the restaurant, we recall the calm water in the port around us and we amplify the spatial perception of the space while bringing the exterior landscape inside the restaurant. The materiality of these ceiling elements, as well as the general feeling of the space, finds inspiration in the classy and elegant J-class boats, with their shiny dark hulls, their sun dyed wooden floors, and their golden details.

The verticality and rhythm of the structure of the building reminded us of the forest of boat masts in the Marina around the restaurant, which we decided to reproduce in the inside. We added some more verticality to the space by introducing some golden tubular structures to support hanging plants. All these vertical lines are reflected in the ceiling, recreating the reflection of boats and masts in the port water and creating a magical atmosphere.

Once in the terrace, the sun-protecting white lattice element of the architecture made us think of a Mediterranean greenhouse, fresh, green, cosy. In our design, the terraces are treated as Mediterranean greenhouses on top of the water. The golden tubular structures from the inside jump to the exterior terraces, blurring the limits between interior and exterior. The greenery consists of climbing and hanging plants which enhance the verticality that we are looking for and is reminiscent of deep-ocean seaweed.

The lavatories invite us once again to travel through the Mediterranean, but now also through time. Antique navigation maps, star constellations and Mediterranean mythological characters appear as light traces above a black background to accompany and guide us in this journey across the sea, dark and mysterious.

SPACE AND DISTRIBUTION The main space of the restaurant, which has a square floor plan, connects to the exterior through three big glazed facades, with sliding windows that allow its physical connection with the surrounding terraces. Since the client had a great interest in giving wine a special presence in the space, we decided to turn the wine cellar into the restaurant lobby, placed on one of the corners of the square floor plan. Once inside the restaurant, a big table with a display of fresh product and color welcomes us, and behind it a big opening allows us to see the activity inside the kitchen.

Facing one of the glazed facades, and next to the entrance, we placed a big gastronomic bar where the clients, sitting all around it, can taste some of the specialties elaborated in it. Once in the main eating area, the space is organized through various L-shaped benches. The materiality of these benches and of the gastronomic bar recalls the hulls of the J-class boats, dark and shiny in their exterior surface but warm and cozy in the interior.

Project Team: Néstor Veloso, Anna Martínez Salom, Cristòfol Tauler, Savina Radeva, Cristina Huguet, Anna Serra