1/2 Cafe&Bar

The room is tuned to a single reflective material. Mirror-polished stainless steel covers the ceiling and returns as a band at mid-height, deliberately rippled, so that every light source multiplies there into a distorted image.

The counter gives the project its name. Slabs of thick glass form a top whose edges turn green in the light; the moulded seats and side tables take up the same transparency. Set on a dark terrazzo platform, the whole seems to hold itself.

LED lines start from a single point at the back of the room and open out in a fan across the ceiling, magenta above, cyan beneath the banquettes. Colour does the work of a plan: it gives depth to a room whose surfaces are all dark.

A block of raw stone, hung above the upper level, plays the part a chandelier would take elsewhere. From the street, the faceted bay throws those colours back onto the building's white render, and the bar becomes the lit sign of its own facade.