Iron Interior · 2021
The Parallel Blue Aquarium Dining
- A' Design Award 2021 in Interior
- CLIENT: Starlinks.Co.Ltd
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 36,429
- Verification code C984B414D0 · Verify this award
Colors
About The Parallel Blue Aquarium Dining
Located in one of the most bustling nightlife spots in Japan, The Parallel Blue offers a new aquarium dining experience in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Challenging the ocean-themed possibilities in the heart of the concrete jungle, the new restaurant turns the simple hospitality environment into an immersive space where dinners are submerged in an aquarium universe. To create the immersive experience, walls were finished in mirrors and the ceiling in similarly reflective aluminum panels expending the space in all directions and recreating the oceanic life in a surrounding environment.
About the A' Design Award
The Parallel Blue Aquarium Dining is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. The Parallel Blue Aquarium Dining is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. The Parallel Blue Aquarium Dining is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Located in one of the most bustling night life spots in Japan, The Parallel Blue offers a new aquarium dining experience in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Challenging the ocean themed possibilities in the heart of the concrete jungle, the new restaurant turns the simple hospitality environment into an immersive space where dinners are submerged in an aquarium universe. The roles are inversed, the dining room is now surrounded by oceanic sceneries, instead of the classical decorative use of aquariums.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Gross Built Area: 94sqm
W12350mm x D8850mm x H2200mm - Tags
- Japan, restaurant, aquarium, Tokyo, immersive, narrow, reflection, blue
- Production Technology
- The restaurant occupies the fourth floor of a mixed-use building. Considering the water tanks heavy weight to be introduced in a relatively old building, the aquariums were positioned exclusively on the top of load bearing beams. Moreover, the aquariums require a maintaining space on the top restricting them from reaching the ceiling. To create the immersive experience, walls were finished in mirrors and the ceiling in reflective aluminum panels expending the space in all directions.
- Design Challenge
- The biggest challenge was to create an immersive experience in a limited area not exceeding the 100sqm and a ceiling height limited to a crushing 2.2m. the other challenge was to insert heavy water tanks inside a relatively old building not designed to bare heavy loads. The solution was to position the water tanks directly over the beams, and extend the space using reflections on the walls and ceiling.
- Research
- The hospitality design and the immersive experience design are stepping each one step closer to each other. While this is true and being tested in several digital immersive art forms, it is less common when it comes to non-digital experiences. The creative research that this project was based on was to find out a way to use the smaller aquariums to create immersive environment.
- Inspiration
- The design for The Parallel Blue is inspired by both the immersive art experiences and the much larger oceanic aquariums attractions. The location of the restaurant in one of the most vibrant nightlife spots in Tokyo, has also had its influence on the space design.
- Project Duration
- Project start: December 2019.
Construction start: March 2020.
Project/Construction End: June 2020.
Location: Tokyo, Japan. - Operation Flow
- The elevator hall on the 4th floor gives on the entrance door, the entrance is made through a small to create more privacy, the first space encountered after are four quarter of circles creating intimate spaces for couple seats. Two other subdivisions of the space are reserved to box sofa seating each with four tables. The smaller space has two tables for two, and two tables for four people. The larger space has two tables for four and two tables for 6 people.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: photographer ©Stirling Elmendorf, The Parallel Blue, 2020.
Image #2: photographer ©Stirling Elmendorf, The Parallel Blue, 2020.
Image #3: photographer ©Stirling Elmendorf, The Parallel Blue, 2020.
Image #4: photographer ©Stirling Elmendorf, The Parallel Blue, 2020.
Image #5: photographer ©Stirling Elmendorf, The Parallel Blue, 2020.