Janus Bar by Junlin Zhang Receives the Silver A' Design Award in Interior Space and Exhibition Design

Junlin Zhang recognized for interior space and exhibition design by the international grand jury of the 2023 - 2024 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 20, 2024 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Janus Bar by Junlin Zhang, designed for Janus, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Interior Space and Exhibition Design category. The award was conferred within the 2023 - 2024 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

What the Silver A' Design Award Means

The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.

About Janus Bar

Janus is a whisky and cocktail bar located in Changsha, China. The interior covers about 200 square meters and is arranged over two floors. The facade is formed by simple black geometric blocks with classical details, and a cantilever platform holds a classical sculpture. The first floor is a supporting space, while the second floor is the main venue and receives daylight through a roof opening. The staircase uses loose wood treads that give a soft sound and slight rebound underfoot. Wood veneer with vertical grain and mirrored stainless steel shape the atmosphere.

About Junlin Zhang

0103 Interior Design Studio is not a traditional interior design team, but a group of young and promising designers who consider design from the perspective of philosophy. We hope that underpinned by our understanding of contemporary art and unique viewpoints, we can interpret and disseminate our values through our design language, which can be achieved by learning politics, religions as well as culture essences of different regions, such as customs, traditional operas, dramas, paintings and calligraphies.

Award Record

Junlin Zhang is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.

About the A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award

The A' Interior Design Award is an international interior design competition recognizing good interior designs by interior designers and architects worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to interior designers, interior architects, architects and decorators from all countries. Entries typically include residential interiors, restaurants, hotels, offices, galleries and retail stores. Awarded interior designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/interior

About A' Design Award & Competition

A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/156360
A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/156360
Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!156360
Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/309286
Further Information from the Laureate: https://www.0103design.com/#/detail/97331e4564d4f3510076fc17

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

###

Fact Sheet

The Work

Project: Janus Bar
Function: Bar
Category: Interior Space and Exhibition Design
Discipline: Spatial Design
Industry: Architecture and Packaging & Retail
Colors: Black, Saddle Brown and Dim Gray
Images: 5
Client: Janus

The Recognition

Laureate: Junlin Zhang
Country: China
Recognition: Silver A' Design Award
Edition: 2023 - 2024
Design ID: #156360

Credits

Team: WenLiang Liu and JingYu Zhang
Image Credits: Ueya photography（Lei Liu）

Design Details

Unique Properties: Janus is a whisky and cocktail bar with a social aspect. Our client had two demands: one was that the audience should not interpret this place according to the literal meaning of Janus or their traditional concepts, and the other was that the audience should have more than two different spatial experiences in this place. These different spatial experiences combine as an integral whole rather than to be independent ones.
Inspiration: When I first went to the site for mapping, I was very excited and surprised by the light on the second floor, when the sunlight was pouring down from the daylight opening. My first reaction was that the place already has distinctive features that can bring audiences different moods, and experiences in the daytime and night-time. I then began to conceptualise how to create two or more different atmospheres in the space. Creating is the art of making a meaningful whole out of individual components
Research: I tried to decipher the form of beauty, but I found that I could not describe or categorise it accurately and clearly. It can be specific things such as people, air, light, sound or colour. When we deal with different clients and different conditions of the place, the results are unpredictable. It reminds me of Louis Kahn, who asked the red brick what it wanted to be.
Challenge: I decided to create the façade with clean and simple geometric blocks, which is the style of contemporary. But it also has classical features in the details. To this point I felt that these designs were not enough because the conflict had not reached its climax. So I added a cantilever platform to place a classical sculpture. It was at this point that I felt the importance of such design planning came to the fore. The pure black and hard blocks together with the classical sculpture bring the sense of power and make it attractive. Such not complicated aesthetics give audiences more possibilities to imagine.
Realization and Technology: What exactly are we talking about when we talk about spatial ambience? Is it sunlight, air, sound, materials, textures, or colours? I began to think about the overall relevance of the façade in relation to the first and second floors. They are at once traditional, strong and thick, even a little archaic and they are at the same time receptive, inclusive, interesting and experimental. I tried to use postmodernism to summarise the atmosphere created inside and outside the building. I decided to create the façade with clean and simple geometric blocks, which is the style of contemporary. But it also has classical features in the details.
Operation and Interaction: When I open the door to the first floor, the confrontation between the interior space and the facade appeared which is confrontation in colour, material, the whole and the fragmented. But this does not detract from the formal unity of the exterior and interior. The retroism without losing the independent style declares their relevance. The staircase guides to the upward space, and I deliberately used loose wood as the tread of the staircase. Stepping on it has a rustling sound and can feel the rebound of the wood. This is completely different from the feeling of crossing the first floor with steady steps. The first floor also doesn’t have the light and shadow spilling out from the top.
Project Duration and Location: The project was launched in March 2023 in Changsha, China and completed in June 2023 in Changsha, China
Keywords: bar, whisky, postmodernism, hard and warm feeling, retroism, experimental