Design Details: Coffee in Frames at Basic Coffee in Beijing

Basic Coffee in Beijing. Office AIO photo.

The young Beijing, China-based studio Office AIO describes the overall sensation for consumers at the new Basic Coffee shop in Beijing’s XianYuKou district as like being in a “live ad.”

Occupying a tight 322 square feet with a walkup window inside a co-working business building, the shop offers a series of intricately framed views from each point in the space, including a thin volume that serves as the entryway that is enveloped by a suspended aluminum perforated screen.

Basic Coffee in Beijing. Office AIO photo.

The veiled entry gallery and curved seating area along the outer edge of the space point to the coffee bar, which is largely concealed from view outside of the barista hands and tools themselves, giving patrons strict views of pourover coffee-making plus the accompanying sounds and smells.

“Like a live ad, these ‘framed views’ expose different motions, ‘performed’ by all parties in the cafe,” states Office AIO. “The suggestiveness in partially concealed acts of indulging in coffee, muffled chatters, and sound and smells of coffee making  arouse one’s curiosity and appetite for various beverages and bites.”

Basic Coffee in Beijing. Office AIO photo.

All of the view-concealing masses, partitions and screens play subtly off the pinkish pastel brand color to give each space and moment in the cafe its own set of sensory cues, according to Office AIO.

“These elements yield an experience that allows the patrons to experience the space through observing a series of orchestrated movements, experience coffee-drinking through focusing their senses on sounds, olfaction and flavors.”

Basic Coffee in Beijing. Office AIO photo.