Morphogenesis-designed Indian restaurant features ‘Harshingaar’ motifs
Conceived as a box within a box, Morphogenesis has designed Sequel restaurant adorned with ‘Harshingaar’ or night jasmine motifs on a narrow site in a busy market square in New Delhi, the capital of India.
Sequel restaurant is designed by Indian architectural design practice Morphogenesis for United Coffee House, one of the old restaurants of Delhi. Fitted within an extremely linear plot, the project presented huge challenge to the architects to accommodate a fine dining restaurant and lounge within the tight setting of the site.
The brief was to design a high-class restaurant and lounge in very narrow confines. The market square is extremely busy and an identity for the restaurant was a part of the design brief- both for the passers-by and for the restaurant customers. The brief also required a sense of privacy and pampering transporting the food aficionado away from the clutter and noise of the street to a calm, serene and sophisticated Zen-like ambiance.
The interior, conceived as a ‘box within a box’, helped to provide individuality and identity within the cluttered visual of the narrow side-by-side high street buildings.
The architects have used a modern version of the ‘Harshingaar’ motif intended to signify the contemporary, yet traditional nature of the space. Harshingaar is a West Indian shrub having small greenish-white flowers. The motifs have been used symbolically as an integral part of the design theme. This has helped in blending the contemporary nature and function of the new fine dining/ lounge with the traditional paradigm of a family restaurant that United Coffee House stands for.
The restaurant space is conceived as a discreet high design space, strung along an almost sculpture like staircase moving over three floors. The staircase epitomizes the entrance and creates an impact at the heart of the building. The ‘Harshingaar’ is cut in wood and used in multiple configurations as a part of the staircase railing.
A bamboo lamp installation over this triple height space created by the staircase visually creates an impact by means of its sculptural identity. A traditional skin- ‘jaali’ is wrapped all over the exterior facade using lights and voids as a pattern-making tool. The pattern is abstracted from the ‘Harshingaar’ and is used to create dramatic and dynamic light changes through the day and over seasons. At night, the light changes can be programmed for festivities.
Once inside the building, a wooden ‘jaali’ with the ‘Harshingaar’ pattern demarcates the seating areas. The pattern also finds place on the furniture- the back of the chairs, the table tops and even the appliqué work on the walls of the lounge areas. The false ceiling and the AC ducts are also clad in wood with the ‘Harshingaar’ motif cut out to bring in light into the restaurant space, almost making it glow in light. The entire design was treated as a high design hand-crafted product.
