Dubbed Best Way To Cup, Kyiv’s latest café is located in a residential building built in the 19th century. The sharp contours of modern interior elements meet the irregular texture of hundred-year-old walls in the two-story space of only 57 square meters.
Ukrainian studio AKZ Architectura was aiming for the perfect harmony of past and present when designing the interior of Kyiv’s latest café. When entering the fairly narrow café with quite high ceilings, guests face the counter and the bench reaching along the narrow corridor. Here customers only sit if they ordered their coffee to go, or if they only have a few minutes for an espresso shot, while small tables established on the second floor await those planning to spend more time here.
In addition to forming logical functions in the space, the biggest challenge for the studio was to combine the strict geometric elements of modern interiors with the original brick walls and arches of the building in a way for them to result in a perfect fusion. The architects used different lighting solutions to emphasize the space structures formed this way.