Shan Café — Beijing, China

Robot3 Design’s brief for Shan Café was simple enough: to turn a nondescript office space in Beijing’s Jingyuan Art Center into a two-level café selling coffee, simple pasta dishes and pastry.
The problem was that the ceiling height of the first floor is barely four metres which, as lead designer Pan Fei points out, is high for a single storey, but not high enough for two. The solution was to dig down a meter in the centre of the space and then build a mezzanine over it.
The result is a light airy space that Pan says is meant to evoke the sensation of being in the countryside, particularly apt given that the building is at the foot of Beijing’s ancient Fragrant Hills. The metaphor is amplified by the judicious use of raw brick and unvarnished timber, and the insertion of a faux log cabin that hovers over private nook with banquettes and hides the staircase to the second level. The open plan is demarcated into smaller cozier nooks with hollowed out trellises, and layers of planter boxes that provide alternating flashes of green and natural light.
‘For this project, the owner had two requirements: low cost, and interesting,’ Pan says. “‘To control the budget, we used very simple and natural materials. To be interesting, the cabin beside the stairs is made of pine sticks. We put the sticks in order one by one.'
ADDRESS
No. 5, Tangjia Village
Jingyuan Art Center
Chaoyang District
Beijing
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Daven Wu is the Singapore Editor at Wallpaper*. A former corporate lawyer, he has been covering Singapore and the neighbouring South-East Asian region since 1999, writing extensively about architecture, design, and travel for both the magazine and website. He is also the City Editor for the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guide to Singapore.
-
'We're all just waiting': What the tariffs actually mean for designers
From Los Angeles studios to Paris ateliers, six insiders reflect on rising costs, murky policies and the future of global design
-
An exclusive look at Flos’ mesmerising short films from Euroluce, each a love letter to lighting
Formafantasma and Nicolò Terraneo’s series of videos showcasing Flos’ new lighting designs are ‘a beautiful piece of creative direction’
-
What does a Renzo Piano-designed handbag look like? Max Mara’s ‘Whitney’ has the answer
In 2015, Max Mara launched the ‘Whitney’ bag, made in collaboration with Renzo Piano Building Workshop to celebrate the opening of New York’s Whitney Museum. Now, a series of reissues celebrate ten years of the institution
-
Tour the best contemporary tea houses around the world
Celebrate the world’s most unique tea houses, from Melbourne to Stockholm, with a new book by Wallpaper’s Léa Teuscher
-
Prada and Wong Kar-wai dream up a cinematic restaurant in Shanghai
Prada partners with Wong Kar-wai to bring Mi Shang Rong Zhai to life, a dining experience influenced by the arthouse director’s seminal oeuvre
-
Enjoy heritage views and contemporary brews at a new Beijing café
JM Café, White Pagoda Temple by B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio nods to the history of the Xicheng District while injecting a shot of vitality
-
Must-visit cinemas with award-worthy design
There’s more magic to the movies at these design-led cinemas, from Busan Cinema Centre’s ‘flying’ roof to The Gem Cinema Jaipur’s art deco allure
-
China’s Alila Shanghai hotel is a stylish hub of idle tranquillity
Alila Shanghai, the brand's first urban resort in Greater China, is a serene bolthole amidst the pulse of the Jing'an district
-
2025 getaways: where Wallpaper* editors will be travelling to this year
From the Japanese art islands of Naoshima and Teshima to the Malaysian tropical paradise of Langkawi, here’s where Wallpaper* editors plan to travel to in 2025
-
Travel back to the Ming dynasty at Beijing’s new Mandarin Oriental hotel
Mandarin Oriental Qianmen merges traditional culture with contemporary needs in a 600-year-old historical building complex
-
Inside Palazzo Versace Macau, a lavish, mosaic-rich hotel
Palazzo Versace Macau, the brand’s first hotel in Asia, continues to preserve Donatella Versace’s swanky hospitality vision