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Self recently led the delivery of a new store for coffee giant Lavazza, in central London. The Lavazza flagship cafe and restaurant is only the second such store in the world and the only one outside Italy and is the first of a new international design concept. The cafe is located on a prominent corner of Great Marlborough Street, opposite the Liberty store.
The ground floor café is dominated by the curving central Barista counter, above which floats the striking coffee-bean chandelier. The walls of this grand space are clad in printed graphic specialist plaster panels, with wood and brass cladding. To the sides are a smaller tile-clad takeaway area and specialist grocery with a barrisol ceiling. The main stair is also clad in specialist plaster panels and leads to the first-floor restaurant, which contains a green wall, brass cladding with a graphic floral design over the ceiling.
As executive architects, Self led the process from concept in June 2019; covering both planning and construction stages, through to completion in June 2021. Self Architects used all their creative collaborative skills, adding the magic sauce to unify the work of 3 distinct design houses. We managed the major changes in concept, to create one coherent stunning design. The creative partnership extended beyond the development of the design concepts, to include also the specialist works of Italian sub-contractors and guiding our Italian client through the intricacies of the UK statutory and construction process.
Self Architects found a novel solution of steel beams in response to the challenge of supporting a new ceiling with a chandelier of 700 LED lit resin coffee beans, in a grade II listed building where the existing listed soffit and cornices could not be touched. The range of luxury wall finishes required very high tolerances necessitating precision co-ordination from the team.
