British designer michael young has recently designed ‘pissarro’, the interior of a new contemporary french restaurant named after the famous french artist, located in the city centre of hong kong. He explains : “Hong Kong has some wonderful dining but few authentic experiences, a few hi quality establishments draw on finely executed historical references to create a satisfactory surroundings but 95% are a pastiche and fail to achieve any sense of warmth thru design. The concept I decided to create was in reaction to this, I adore eating out and wanted to design a place that gave the comfort of a classic interior but in contemporary terms. I find that most new interiors feel austere due to materials and surfaces they employ. I have been fortunate to get involved in several interesting projects in our industrial division from which I have drawn some extraordinary processes.

I worked with leading design engineer Ken O’Rourke in Taiwan on the front door, he persuaded some hi volume production factories in Taichung to CNC panels of aluminum each with different designs embedded into them to aircraft standard and anodize in specially created colors. 3M provided the wall and ceiling finishes using golden di-noc which assists in creating depth and plane to the interior which was problematically thin. After developing techniques in paper folding with local craftsmen over the last two years I felt brave enough to clad walls using the same process. The only demand from the client was to call the establishment Pissarro after the French artist. He was known for is wonderful skies was in homage we abstracted them digitally and duplicated them in modern terms, each panel contains 26,400 pieces of paper which makes over 300,000 in the entire interior. To break up the strong lines and industrial approach I flew to Mount Fuji to create the lighting in a small village workshop that would allow me to blow the lighting myself.

It was an organic experience and I had no idea what was going to happen, the beauty was in the spontaneity, after blowing the glass into a ball we would then heat up a small area and blow again repeating the process several times. In these areas the glass becomes thinner allowing the light to pass thru and creating a warm glowing effect. Furniture was manufactured by Accupunto Indonesia. The Coen chair (winner of Wallpapers 2008 best dining chair award) was created as special edition in replanted teak and black leather. A matching table was also designed both using cnc technology Young’s ambition to unite traditional craft ideology with technology-led processes of today pre-empts a typology in design which celebrates progress and the timeless appeal of design placed in its time. The restaurant covers 1600 SQFT and seats approximately 50 diners at any one time.

Source : designboom, DeZona,

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