Run for the Hills / Yeast Bakery, London
The Yeast Bakery’s new London home turns a drab and dreary industrial building into a warm and welcoming venue where customers can enjoy tasty food and great coffee
Words By Emily Martin
Images By Philip Durrant
PROJECT INFO
Interior design and branding design
Run For The Hills
www.runforthehills.com
Client: Yeast Bakery
Size: 240 sqm
Completion date: August 2021
DESIGN STUDIO Run For The Hills has completed its interior and brand makeover of East End bakery, Yeast Bakery. The bakery is now based in a new location near Broadway Market in East London, after owners Ben Keane and Angela Chan searched for a larger venue. It specialises in high quality, hand-made viennoiserie, baking fresh every morning and delivering seven days a week to boutique coffee shops, restaurants and delicatessens across London. It also has a café and deli, as well as hosting live music in the evenings. Keane and Chan wanted to take its brand and interior design to ‘another level’ when moving premises, and enlisted the help of Run For The Hills.
The design brief consisted of not only softening the excessively industrial site, but also to divide it into four distinct zones: a bakery counter; a café area; a lifestyle and deli zone; and the all-important central kitchen and bakery
Run For The Hills co-founder Anna Burles comments: ‘Ben and Angela came to us when they were looking at taking on this larger venue, which looks directly onto the Regents Canal. Our brief was to create four distinct zones within the large open plan space, with areas for the bakery counter, a café zone, lifestyle and deli, and the all-important nervecentre kitchen/bakery. The venue itself was a large, glazed industrial style space, and our creative brief was to soften things, injecting more of an urban artisan vibe.’
The design team used the idea of ‘broken plan’ within the new spatial design concept, to allow for openness and a smooth customer flow while creating distinct zones. Each area is designed to feel part of a family design language, but with its own identity which is potrayed in graphics and material features. Run For The Hills used largely loose furniture to help differentiate these zones, which have a double purpose, allowing the clients to use the space for event hire, easily transforming and reconfiguring it for live music performances and specialist gatherings.
Ahead of the move to its new canal side premises, Run For The Hills’ graphics team gave Yeast Bakery a clean and simple brand refresh, creating a new timeless and elegant bespoke logotype and two minimal letter mark roundels.
‘The client gave us quite an editorial fashion steer on the branding that we were happy to run with,’ comments Run For The Hills co-founder Chris Trotman. ‘Contrasting a bespoke serif font with simple Helvetica for the logotype but making the letter mark roundels the main focal point. For the colour palette, we chose a pale pink and a pinkish charcoal colour that perfectly compliment the bakery’s new interiors.’
On the building exterior there are two white projecting signs with the new letter mark, and creative white brand decals on the windows, which help create a cosier and more intimate feel for customers inside. The design team specified Bauwerk Limewash for the walls to add a vintage, lived-in look to the previously stark white walls.
Step inside and you’ll see a rich plum tone in the café seating area and a dusky soft pink behind the main bar counter. The deep paint colours complement the exposed concrete pillars around the venue to feel fresh, rather than feeling raw or cold as they had against the previous white-washed walls. The colourful, sophisticated decorative palette plays well against the industrial exposed ceiling and galvanised extraction pipework, adding a much softer feel to the industrial unit. For in-venue graphics, the design team created a series of blackened steel framed lightboxes hanging on metal chains to help zone each space.
The cafe/deli counter is topped in solid concrete with a textured front with soft pink 3D porcelain tiles. Beautiful frameless pastry display cases showcase products at counter level, with artisan tiered displays above, creating a low-level display allowing for maximum view of the tracks of breads displayed behind. Bakery display shelving made from rich timber and blackened steel wraps in an L-shape around the back of the bar across the full height of the main front window, displaying pastries and bread.
The café/bakery flooring is a mix of concrete and white and pink patterns. Crittall glazing designed by Run For The Hills, divides the large open kitchen bakery space from the café.
The design brief consisted of not only softening the excessively industrial site, but also to divide it into four distinct zones: a bakery counter; a café area; a lifestyle and deli zone; and the all-important central kitchen and bakery
There is a mix of seating set ups, including a timber high bench table, tactile, leather topped tables with timber frames, and a mix of zinc and black tables with eclectic dining chairs. Rattan and woven bohemian furniture were selected for the outside terrace to soften the glazed box shopfront.
Industrial timber and metal shelving units are designed to display coffee beans, chai tea and handmade gifts, cards and accessories. Retail display space is also used as a key part of the zoning between café and working bakery.
Much of the lighting is created through architectural lighting and integrated lighting within display cases. The interior designer team at Run For The Hills added extra layers of decorative fittings to bring light levels down, such as the Devol crackle glaze artisan pendants next to the Crittall kitchen/bakery screens, hung low above the high bench table.
KEY SUPPLIERS
Lighting
Devol
www.devolkitchens.co.uk
Abigail Ahern
www.abigailahern.com
Surfaces
Bauwerk
www.bauwerkcolour.com
ArchiTile
www.archi-tile.co.uk
