Scent of a Golden Age Coffee Shop by Joye Chuang and Celine Liou is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 Golden A' Design Award in Interior Space and Exhibition Design Competition Category.
GoldInterior· 2021
Scent of a Golden Age Coffee Shop
by Joye Chuang and Celine Liou
Client: Nong Mu Design Engineering Company
Golden A' Design Award Winner in Interior Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #106894The Design
About Scent of a Golden Age Coffee Shop
Scent of a Golden Age is a coffee shop in the Chihkan District of Tainan. The project is a renovation of a sixty-year-old two-story shophouse and covers 158.67 square meters. The design takes cues from the Showa era and from the imagery of the good old days. The steel frame and iron cladding of the old house are retained and refined. Revivalist woodwork supports the pitched roof, which has an oval opening recalling the entrance of a Japanese residence. Gold and autumn colors form the main palette. A spiral staircase organizes the circulation near the bar counter.
The Recognition
About the Golden A' Design Award
Scent of a Golden Age Coffee Shop is a Golden A' Design Award winner, an immensely prestigious recognition granted to first-rate, marvelous, and outstanding designs. Golden winners are exceedingly innovative, visionary, and glamorously dazzling creations that reflect the prodigy, wisdom, and prowess of their designers. Scent of a Golden Age Coffee Shop is expected to be a highly praised, trendsetting, and monumental invention that delivers unprecedented value. This Golden A' Design Award-winning design is a spectacular, respected project that highly benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Scent of a Golden Age Coffee Shop creates intense feelings of desire, evokes passion, encourages creativity, and fascinates us.
Where to Get It
Award-Winning Commercial Interior Design
We transform commercial spaces through thoughtful interior design that blends heritage with contemporary aesthetics. Specializing in retail, hospitality, and historic renovations, our award-winning approach creates immersive environments that enhance brand identity and customer experience.
Discuss Your ProjectBehind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- This renovation of a sixty-year-old two-story shophouse into a modern coffee shop in the Chihkan District of Tainan is the sixth franchise store of OH! Café, whose owner once won World Coffee Roasting Champion (WCRC) in 2014. The design team began with the imagery of the "good old days" and took cues from the Showa era to build a flagship store that is worthy of its brand. The traces of begone days and the smell of coffee together makes the space into a warm one.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Total 158.67 square meters.
- Tags
- Coffee, Renovation, Tainan, Japanese, Gold
- Production Technology
- The Showa era gold color and colors of the autumn season constitute the main colors scheme of the project. The spiral staircase optimizes the space and anchors the circulation of the area near the bar counter on the first floor. The streamlined curve of the design connects several things into one gesamtkunstwerk: the encircling concrete cylinders, the fifty-year-old handmade paper umbrellas hanging above, the aromas area in the rear cabinet wall, and the corner of the counter.
- Design Challenge
- The second floor is designed as a mezzanine. To the left is a small Japanese garden with a narrow flagstone path. The millstone fountain suggests the presence of the restrooms. To the right is the raised seating area that looks like a floating pavilion. The scale of Japanese rush mats accommodates both gestures of sitting and lying. Whether or not the curtains are closed, the windows by the streets present an order complex to the old alleyway.
- Research
- The gold paint on the steps of the staircase invokes a sense of Showa-era. An abstract painting of rough sapphire-like texture occupies the wall that spans both floors as if the smoke of coffee bean roasting rising. Outside the glass window is the light of the old yellow lantern, echoing the bamboo lantern inside. The resonance between inside and outside recalls warm memories of bygone days.
- Inspiration
- The steel frame and iron cladding of the old house are transformed into a place with a refined essence of time. The revivalist woodwork supports the pitched roof with an oval opening like the entrance of a Japanese residence. The reinterpretation of an old Japanese house through new imagination.
- Project Duration
- The project started in April 2019 in Tainan and finished in June 2019 in Tainan.
- Operation Flow
- The service area at the bar counter accommodates advanced coffee machines, bean grinder, and waiters' uniforms. The colors are restricted to a minimum to facilitate the concentration needs for the professional working area, including the rusticated brown of the counter facade, the quartz stone countertop, and other metal components. Both old and new to create the beloved touches of a Japanese house.
- Patents
- Copyrights belong to Joye Chuang, 2019.
- Team Members
- Design Director: Joye Chuang
Interior Stylist: Celine Liou - Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Sanwen Studio, Scent of a Golden Age, 2019.
Image #2: Photographer Sanwen Studio, Scent of a Golden Age, 2019.
Image #3: Photographer Sanwen Studio, Scent of a Golden Age, 2019.
Image #4: Photographer Sanwen Studio, Scent of a Golden Age, 2019.
Image #5: Photographer Sanwen Studio, Scent of a Golden Age, 2019.
Main image is Image #1, Optional Image #1 is Image #2, Optional Image #2 is Image #3, Optional Image #3 is Image #4, Optional Image #4 is Image #5.
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