Located within the down town area in the city of Xuzhou, China, Made In Kitchen is a newly opened Chinese restaurant serving contemporary Chinese cuisine. With a total floor area of 12,000sq.ft. occupying 2 floors, the site imposed constraints of missing vertical linkage and unpleasant views of the busy street.

The design solution hence aimed at turning the spatial constraint into unique spatial languages and created the brand identity for this newly set up dining place. This was done by adopting design strategy of creating a total "inward looking" scheme with the help of a man-made landscape. Context and languages of traditional Chinese landscape painting were re-interpreted to complete the dining experience.

The resulting environment incorporated narrative elements of:

Scenes

Scenes of "cloud" + "flying birds" + "rock" (G/F bar) / "mountain" (stairwell) / "moon light" (1/F pendant lights) / "house" (1/F VIP rooms) / "waterfall" + "starry night" (1/F washrooms) were adopted to give cultural identity to the whole space.

Flow

A minimal "cage like" stairwell was created to provide internal vertical linkage to the 2 levels. Full height dark timber structure with horizontal zic-zac pattern-like balustrade and concealed staircase light troughs suggested virtual experience of ascending a mountain in traditional Chinese painting. Zic-Zac arranged full-height white metal screens with random square patterns created screening effect and sense of "flow". Various diners' sight-lines and better privacy were provided for the 1/F open dining area.

Hierarchy

The Chinese definition of spatial hierarchy was established by the tonal change from bright yellow (G/F) to dark red (1/F) and level of privacy change from open (G/F's bar & 1/F's open dining) to semi-open (circular booths) to private (VIP rooms).

Unique dining experience is the keywords for any successful restaurant's business strategy. "Made In Kitchen" aims to move that dining experience to another cultural level.