Korean BBQ restaurant SEOULMEET

HORECA / 2022

Location
{ About }
Area
Status
Project author
Logo
LCD “4YOU”, Almaty, Kazakhstan
195 m²
realized
Vassilyadi Marina
Khan Valentina Viktorovna
Photographer
photoshoot was not held
Stylistically, the challenge for the designer was to capture the atmosphere of the city of Seoul and its grill restaurants. We deliberately moved away from the images of streets with numerous neon signs and lightboxes and approached and reinterpreted a traditional part of Korean architecture.

{ Planning }
In the layout, the placement of functional areas dictated the space itself:
the conventional center, organized by four existing columns, houses the bar;
the hall with a bar is the first hall, where tables with grill plates are maximally placed;
behind the bar area is the second hall without grill plates and with two VIP-zones for large campaigns;
here in the second hall there is a service entrance to the kitchen and guest bathrooms.
The second hall is designed so that, if necessary, individual tables along the large sofa can form a seating group for a large campaign. Thus the whole territory of the second hall is designed for longer stay of guests in large groups and is quite separate from the first hall.
It was also possible to provide a small zone of children's leisure with two tables, chalk board, cartoon broadcasting, books and toys.

In the first hall the central seating for 2 tables, if necessary, can also become a single seating area for one company of guests with visual separation from the general hall with curtains made of mats.

The total area of all halls is 140 square meters and is designed for 70 seats.

About finishing of the restaurant halls

Immediately upon entering the vestibule, guests are greeted by a composition of bansai wood with stones and a scattering of black pebbles. The red light directed on the tree symbolizes the sun. The glass doors of the vestibule are decorated with a group of red semicircles, creating an allusion to traditional ancient gates, reinforced with metal spherical inserts.

In the interior design of the first hall of the facility are used paintings with Asian motifs on prefabricated plywood with inclusions of wooden laths, designed by the designer for individual production. The walls are finished with wall panels under wood and white plaster decor in the technique of volumetric application of “stripes”.
In the center of the hall there is a construction stylized as a pagoda (Pagoda is a traditional wooden building in Korean architecture) with painting patterns in Danchon style.

Traditional fabric signs descend from the ceiling.

In the second hall, round panels made of painted plywood with red threads and neon lighting are the accent elements of the design. A large wall of empty bottles from Soju with backlighting serves as an eye-catching and selfie-zone. For the decorative panels from Soju bottles it was necessary to collect about 750 pieces of original bottles of this drink.

A composition of artificial moss and herbs with an Asian-style lantern and light arcs imitating circles on the water surface descends from the ceiling above the tables in the VIP zones. The composition is finished with rattan lamps. The walls are decorated with a group of decorations made of plywood and macramé threads, stylized as traditional Hahweh masks.
There are also decorative origami fans on the walls. All decorative wall decorations are designed by the designer of individual production specifically for this institution. All furniture, with the exception of the chairs, is custom designed for the restaurant.

Bathrooms

In the bathroom, a notable design element was the painting of the doors with the image of HAETAE, a mythical creature in Korean folklore, which has been the official symbol of Seoul since 2009 and many statues of it are easily found there. The painting is reflected in a large mirror, which allows you to take a picture with this mythical and beautiful creature.


The interiors of the establishment are filled with symbolism in every detail of the interior, which is up to the guests and connoisseurs of South Korean culture to unravel.

Process

While designing, we took into account the budget deficit for the realization of such an establishment. We solved this problem by two methods: firstly, we used available materials and simple construction technologies in the design, and secondly, we envisioned the possibility of splitting the renovation process into 2-3 stages in the formation of the project. The project is made in such a way that it is possible to realize only the main part of design solutions and successfully open the restaurant. After a certain period of work of the establishment to perform the second stage - decorative (the second stage includes the construction of the Pagoda (gazebo) and ceiling decors over it in the first hall, decorative lamps-sleeves for ventilation structures over the tables with grill plates; decorative ceiling structures in the second hall, decorative masks and fans on the walls, a wall of bottles “Soju” in the hall and in the boudoir). During the renovation process, the customer adhered to this principle and was able to open the restaurant without going beyond his starting budget.