Bronze Architecture · 2025
Merci Shop
by Yuma Sato
- Bronze A' Design Award 2025 in Architecture
- CLIENT: Koto Architecture Lab Inc
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 12,118
- Verification code 16DEAE614D · Verify this award
Colors
About Merci Shop
Merci is a plant cafe built in a rural setting between two cities. The cafe is surrounded by roads and looks out over scenic countryside views. Wooden construction methods and advanced structural calculations allow extensive open ceilings. A central open atrium brings unity to the diverse spaces and fills the interior with natural light, creating a restful place at any time of day. The flooring is made from recycled coffee grounds solidified with cement, and the outer walls use natural materials. Local ingredients are served, supporting regional circulation and the surrounding community.
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Merci Shop is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Merci Shop is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Merci Shop splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This is a plant cafe where you can enjoy scenic rural views. It values nature and utilizes its facility surrounded by roads to create a space filled with natural light, making it a relaxing environment at any time of the day. The open atrium brings unity to the diverse spaces. Additionally, we focus on using more natural materials to create a sophisticated atmosphere.
- Tags
- cafe,regional circulation, nature,universality, coexistence
- Production Technology
- The building was constructed using wooden construction methods. Advanced structural calculations were employed, making extensive use of open ceilings. The finishing materials included flooring made from recycled products of coffee grounds solidified with cement, and the outer walls used natural materials, resulting in a sustainable building.
- Research
- In this architecture, the most important thing is a space for creating a new and nostalgic future that blends in with the community. We aimed for a space that maximizes the goodness of the area while being able to design for the future.
- Inspiration
- The idea was to build a peaceful structure in the countryside that connects the two cities.
Amidst the aging population and depopulation, it was crucial to support the local cycle and create a landscape loved by the community. - Project Duration
- We will continue to expand, starting with Okayama City in 2024. We aim to open multiple stores in the future.
- Operation Flow
- This building is a cafe open to the local community, and a space that aims to promote local circulation. It aims to be an indigenous land that uses local ingredients. It also has an eye on inbound tourism, as a place where people can enjoy sightseeing at traditional Japanese facilities that are a tourist resource for the region.
- Image Credits
- photo:Iku Asanuma
