The counter was designed to look older than the restaurant.
A counter that seems to have arrived
before the restaurant.
before the restaurant.
Ryoan Project
Wabi-sabi and shou sugi ban called for a dark stone, whole, without a seam. Western cast the omakase counter as a single monolith in the Carbon tone and, above the chefs, hung a cloud of stone.
Cladding design and floating stone: Western
01
Photography: Hefestos Films
02
“A monolithic base, as if it had been on site before the restaurant existed.”
— from the atelier notes
A whole monolith and a cloud on the ceiling only exist because the stone weighs a tenth of natural rock.
Grazing light under the edge reveals the grain without competing with the chefs’ ritual.
Shall we make
it real?
Western comes in from the first sketch: modelling, engineering and execution in our own atelier.