Living Bakkali by Masquespacio
Living Bakkali is an oriental restaurant situated in Valencia, Spain, designed in 2021 by Masquespacio.
Description
Living Bakkali, like the restaurant’s name, expresses is a place to live sensorial experiences both for the palate as well as for the tact and the vision. Inspired by the Middle East the design wishes to take you to the most profound part of the dessert, connecting you with a marvelous environment for many unknown and full of mystery.
This way the project initially is presented through a layout of the different areas that recreate small corners like if you were at the fantastic Orient with its lounge seats that invite the different diner groups to relax and connect with each other, while they enjoy the creative dishes from Living Bakkali. At the same time, the diner will be curious to discover what the other corners of the place hide, partially revealed through the different windows in the style of Arabic architecture.
A central hall that connects the entrance with the kitchen is guiding you through the space, discovering each of the surroundings of the restaurant, from the more intimate 2-person seating area and the benches for bigger groups till a space that is on a higher level and gives you the opportunity to have a wider view on the restaurant. While the first part of the hall makes you feel as you were walking through a street of ancient houses, the second part takes you through a corridor between curtains that incorporate a private dining room and the bathrooms from the restaurant.
Talking a little bit more in detail about the forms and materials from Living Bakkali, at every moment organic forms contrast with each other, while an adobe effect is created on walls, floors, and ceilings, using 1 unique material for the entire design, executed completely by hand like for the houses from the past that are aimed to be represented here. Above, a more neutral, but slightly contrasting color palette that clearly reminds us of the dessert has been applied. Last but not least, the created lighting effects, aim to highlight the mysterious and beautiful Orient to be discovered.
Hereby, the design for Living Bakkali, is all a tribute to the unknown and marvelous world to be discovered in the East, with special attention for its architecture from the past.
Photography by Sebastian Erras
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- by Matt Watts