ConXrete Coffee is a new western cuisine coffeehouse and restaurant in Taiyuan, Shanxi in an electic industrial environment. Renovated from an 80’s era plastic factory building, our design scope spans multiple scales of space from the master plan and landscape, to architecture, interior space, and custom furniture and lighting fixtures. The project's concrete industrial aesthetic and the concept of the X is derived from the existing building's concrete structure as well as new concrete casting as a main design element tying the disparate spaces together. The letter X is not only the main feature in the project's brand identity, but the overall conceptual underpinning as an unknown quantity, and as part of the english prefix "ex" to inspire such adjectives such as "exciting", "exquisite", "extreme", "exotic" in the spatial design.

The existing building is composed mainly of a two floor concrete structure merged with a three floor brick building, where an existing boiler room and operating office occupy most of the first floor space. Therefore the restaurant spaces utilize the entire top floor of the concrete structure and the brick building. We created a three story atrium in the lobby to tie the two building volumes together, forming a core that links the outdoor activities to the interior dining experience. Shipping containers interface with the building and its landscape, creating entrances, stairways, and outdoor pavilions.

At the southwest corner, a container tower rises over the courtyard, accomodating a private dining room at the top for panoramic views of the site and the city beyond.

One of the main attractions of this project is its contrast in its use of materials. It involves the use of traditional red and grey bricks, whilst integrating steel framed windows, curtain walls as primary elements of the facade, creating engaging unity between the old and the new.

The landscape south of the restaurant is arranged in a crossing X pattern, forming spaces for a basketball court, drive-in movie theater, bleacher viewing platforms, and various shipping containers placed on faceted green berms. These spaces allow for multiple outdoor activities from basketball tournaments and moving screenings to outdoor events. A red circulation ribbon weaves through the landscape and interior space, linking the major programmatic elements and creating a strong visual attractor throughout.

The interior maintains the building's original factory roots with a strong industrial loft character, with the supporting red ribbon circulation path heightening visitors’ sense of direction and creating an enticing series of spaces, from the entrance lobby to the main dining area, bar, and private dining rooms. Custom concrete walls and formwork, paired with specially designed lighting fixtures creates interactions between the visitors and the ground, wall, and ceiling surfaces and further expresses the multi-dimensional character of concrete through each space.