Restaurant celebrates characteristics of urban necessities
Scaffolding, fire escapes and security gates are all things found in busy urban locations. But, how often do you truly pay attention to them? Enter the new Tessa restaurant in New York City, and these items provide a visual connection to the urban street the restaurant sits on. Designed by Sag Harbor, N.Y.-based
Bates Masi + Architects LLC, the 3,250-square-foot project, which was completed in April 2014, won the Interiors category for the 2016 Metal Architecture Design Awards.
Paul Masi, partner at Bates Masi + Architects, explains that while their participation in the project was a bit unlikely, it was their creative energy that was desired to drive the project. The firm had designed the client’s home, and as first-time owners of a restaurant, the client wanted to work with them again, even though it was their first time designing a restaurant.
A Celebration of Manhattan
The inspiration and design concept for the restaurant was to pull in the feeling of the city streets, while celebrating the mundane or utilitarian aspects of the cityscape, which is created as a transformed version within the restaurant. “The overall design goal was to create a unique and memorable dining experience that reflected urban character,” Masi says. “This design also needed to serve as the company’s branding. We chose to single out the security gate from the urban landscape and explore what it could be aside from its typical use.”
When beginning to design the restaurant, Masi says his firm photographed the immediate area surrounding the restaurant. “After analyzing the photos, we uncovered this language of security, gates and signage that people typically block out mentally as they are in the urban environment and we decided to celebrate these elements in our design.”
“It is important to celebrate the culture you are in,” Masi continues. “Manhattan is one of the most interesting and exciting places in the world and we wanted to create an atmosphere reflective of this.”
Metal security gates became the architectural language for the restaurant and are used in the design and branding to create a relationship with its urban location. The challenge, Masi says, was finding new ways to use the security gate and testing how it would perform in each instance. To fine-tune the design, the architects used a variety of mock-ups.
Layers of Steel
Combining industrial and urban elements, the restaurant features exposed whitewashed brick walls and double-layered blackened steel security gates that cover the entire ceiling. The gates, suspended at different levels, create both a bold design statement and a screen that conceals the restaurant’s mechanical systems, while blurring the customer’s perception of the beginning and end of the ceiling.
Ceiling lights shine through the gates diamond-shaped openings, illuminating the geometry and creating shadows, while changing the apertures of the gates alters the quality of light throughout the space and compliments the existing raw brick walls.
The security gate is layered, and the aperture is adjustable, which creates a repetition of shape and a moiré effect that can be read differently throughout the space. “The layers of security gate on the ceiling allows light to pass through and cast shadows on the brick walls, adding to the atmosphere of the space,” Masi says. “The brick and steel are both in raw, natural states to complement each other.”
The project features custom-fabricated blackened steel security gates, which were fabricated on-site by Jeff Lamm of Yongxin Interior Contractors Inc., Flushing, N.Y. The 3/4-inch-wide, 14-gauge steel channel is riveted back-to-back with solid steel rivets, and finished with a steel blackening solution.
Rustic Charm
Throughout the space, the gates and diamond pattern created by the gates openings continue as a theme, which is seen in the gate-wrapped bar and in the industrial scissor lamps. Herringbone-patterned wood flooring and the bar top reflects the ceiling at various scales. Derived from the security gates, the industrial scissor lamps provide flexibility when the restaurant’s seating is reconfigured. The lights illuminate custom tables, which are a further refinement of the architectural language. Even the smallest details, such as strategically spaced steel fasteners, compliment the urban narrative.
Classic wire glass, with varying levels of opacity, defines the space. Additionally, diamond-steel plate stairs, blackened steel bathroom sinks and herringbone woven telecommunication cables are all on display throughout the restaurant, creating an elegant, inviting and comfortable setting ripe with rustic charm.
The metal theme continues in the restaurant’s lower-level restroom area with raw steel in plate form that is drilled or fastened in the same geometry as the security gates, carrying this language into other components, translated down to the wire glass. “Metal plates are used for areas that needed to be more solid, like the stairs for instance,” Masi explains. “And bronze is used to create a focal point in the center of the space.”
“From our perspective as designers, we enjoyed the process of exploring the potential of the metal component from the bar to the ceiling down to the light fixtures and watching this seedling of an idea grow throughout the project in various ways,” says Masi.
Tessa, New York City
Completed: April 2014
Total square footage: 3,250 square feet
Architect/interior designer: Bates Masi + Architects LLC, Sag Harbor, N.Y.
General contractor/fabricator/metal installer: Yongxin Interior Contractors Inc., Flushing, N.Y.