In the last few years, drinking coffee has firmly settled in Korean culture. Previously, coffee symbolized a posh lifestyle resulting from one’s high socio-economical background. Nowadays, drinking coffee is an indispensable ritual that we carry out daily.

Recently, I had a chance to meet the head barista of ACOFFEE at one quiet café in the buzzing city of Seoul. In a very tight space under three sq meters, the barista moved precisely with poise while carefully listening to customers’ stories at the bar. In that brief period, his performance soon bewitched my spatial awareness. He made me believe that I was sitting in the front row of a stand-up. The barista was a seasoned actor on a stage, dazzling before my eyes with his monologue of coffee brewing.

The design of A COFFEE embodies my memory of his coffee making monologue in a spatial form. Instead of instilling the identity of a café, space is a natural extension of the barista: a theatre. The design embeds every nuance of his expressions for creating a theatre-like experience: from the long length of the bar to the seat types. The very moment of walking into ACOFFEE is a prologue to the soliloquy of his coffee.

Type: Cafe

Client: Acoffee
Location: 2F, 19, Baekseokdong 1ga-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Floor Area: 90.48㎡
Involvement: Concept Design, Construction
Date of completion: Dec. 2020
Photography: Sunghoon, Han