Housed in a former barbershop, Voice of Coffee is a cafe located in Kobe, Japan.
Designed by Yusuke Seki, the cafe’s glass façade is set back to create a traditional element of a Japanese house called engawa where guests can sit and enjoy their drinks while outdoors.
The façade also features glass bricks that are held together with binding concrete and a door handle made of two panes of glass.
“While the setback reduces the actual amount of space inside the store, the addition of another spatial layer between interior and street ends up making the store feel deeper, and thus more spacious, than before,” said Seki.
A significant portion of the structural elements has been preserved. For example, the wooden screen below the ceiling is the original timber frame that had been hidden behind plaster. The walls have also been untouched after the finish covering had been removed.
“Paradoxically, this subtractive approach has an accumulative effect: every detail come to light, every inscription left behind by a worker a generation ago, serves to make history visible, adds to the sense of time passing,” noted Seki. “This sense is heightened by a special detail: a layer of silver leaf, barely appreciable, applied to the wall near the back of the store.”
The cafe serves a variety of items such as iced coffee, espressos, pastries and more. Coffee beans are also available by the bag and wholesale.
To learn more about Voice of Coffee, click the link below.
