WIND IN THE RYE

NAME: PLENA127-KOREAN RESTAURANT;
LOCATION: SHANGHAI;
AREA: 960 SQUARE METERS;
YEAR OF COMPLETION: 2015;
MATERIALS: WALNUT, ASH, ELM, STRAW BOARDS AND WET-GROUND PEBBLE STONES.

Wishing to create exclusive Seoul-esque dining experience, PLENA127 conjures up a sensation of nature in symbiosis with metropolitan environs. The broad applications of the element “rye” are a call for something of the purest kind deep down in memories tainted by commercial callings.

There is at the entrance a wall of straw in wavy contours that runs 15 meters and partitions the private and shapely “city” off from the much more open and straggly “suburb”. Functional areas are either divided or connected by key landscape nodes and wheat ears in crisscrossing, abstract forms; and private compartments of varying sizes express unique themes. The phasing in and out between spaces, in conjunction with the differing heights of terraces, symbolizes the organic fusion between the metropolis and nature – and that is also where the magic works.