Architects have just finished a new project in the centre of Moscow in the former Soviet printing house “Red Proletarian”, redeveloped now into a large business centre. As the name suggests, SoupMaker Café make and serve a variety of seasonal soups, but the menu goes well beyond them. The team has already worked on the premises: the very first big restaurant designed by their project is located almost next door.
This time they have happened to work with a space, very long and narrow in plan, with 5-metre high ceilings and large floor-to-ceiling glazing on the main facade. Due to this, the kitchen, lavatories and storage rooms have been squeezed into a two-storeyed box at the very back. The space left is tiled with metal profiles and the niches are accomplished by neon signs tipping off the rooms’ functions. The manager’s office on the second floor is masked by spy mirror film. The ceilings and ventilation have been painted in neutral gray. The original wall cladding is partly restored and fixed with translucent lacquer. The floor surface and tables are coated with microcement.
The interior concept represents a combination of the laconic industrial building shell and the bright yellow-painted plywood bar counter, finished in the old Japanese wood technique. The counter is an important zoning element of the entire space and serves several purposes: it is a product display, a service area, a cash desk and a communal table with a plant pot in it at the same time.