丨韩国首尔丨KKOL Studio

Architects:KKOL Studio

Area:293m²

Year:2025

Photographs:Donggyu Kim

Category:Coffee Shop Interiors

Design Team:Euisun Yoon, Hyeji Bae, Sungwook Song, Minsung Kim

City:Seoul

Country:South Korea

Text description provided by the architects. Center Coffee is a brand known and loved for its devotion to coffee beans and its sincerity toward coffee. Alongside a change in seasons, Center Coffee underwent a large-scale rebranding and a simultaneous recontextualization of its spatial design. Each location has its unique appeal and characteristics, but there was a need to form an appropriate level of visual consistency throughout. The task was to forge "uniformity" while also specifying a degree of "difference."

When considering the identity of the comfortable and cozy Seoul Forest flagship store, the character of the word "center" in Center Coffee was slightly overpowering, inadvertently evoking an overly shiny, urbanized impression. The space needed settings that somewhat accommodate the flagship store's androgynous yet warm identity without alienating the concept of "center" in its name. The setting most central to this objective is the "axis."

The keyword to Center Coffee's spatial rebranding is "axisthetic," a compound neologism combining "axis" and "aesthetic." Based on permutations of properties such as size, volume, material, alignment, placement, etc., there are countless possibilities for the precise form of the axis. Variegated axes such as the vertical axis, the horizontal axis, the penetrative axis, the diagonal axis, the rotating axis, the gigantic axis, the weak axis, the repetitive axis, the stacked axis, the bent axis, and more can entail the unique functionality required by each Center Coffee location while simultaneously acting as the spatial design premise unifying each composite location under one brand identity.

The Center Coffee located in Lotte Castle Eastpole, Guui-dong takes the form of a plaza, meeting passersby descending on an escalator with a space open on all four sides. As the space is central to the entire floor, axes that can stand out even within disorder and distraction were strategically applied to the design. A horizontal counter with an extensive 10m width acts as one axis and is accompanied by an attached diagonal axis that rises upward. Given its positionality matching the descriptor "center" in its name, we opted to apply axes that could bring these strengths to life. The tall merchandise display cabinet seen at the front of the space also forms a thin but powerful axis.

Considering the environment of the space and construction regulations, rather than executing a design that leverages architectural structure, we instead envisioned a design in which the individual pieces of furniture used by customers form small structures, and these small structures come together to compose a larger structure. Seating with high backs played the role of small partitions, and two-person benches with wide backs were intentionally placed in passageways to act as a fence enclosing the space. The placement of long tables was decided upon in a similar fashion, creating the sensibilities conducive to relishing in comfort and the leisure of a cup of coffee, even in a space with limited wall space to rely on.

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