Welcome to Design Details, an ongoing editorial feature in Daily Coffee News focused on individual examples of coffee shop architecture, interior design, packaging design or branding. If you are a coffee shop owner, designer or architect and would like to submit your project for consideration, reach our editors here.
Design Details: Beanroom
- Project: Beanroom (styled “(beanroom)” by the brand)
- Location: Taipei, Taiwan
- Size (interior): 132 square meters (1,420 square feet)
- Opened: June, 2024
- Design firm: Waterfrom Design
- Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment (FF&E): Waterfrom Design + Monouno
- Photographs: Studio Millspace
Set back from the street beneath a towering banyan tree in Taipai is Beanroom, a specialty coffee shop where consumer choices create a dynamic facade.
Taipei-based firm Waterfrom led the design, employing the concept of “product as decoration” through a series of simple racks with hinges to hold bagged, roasted coffees, each given a different color to signify tasting notes.
“By making regularly updated product packaging the focal point of the space rather than fixed displays, which serve as secondary elements supporting the products, we can reduce aesthetic fatigue caused by design stagnation,” the firm said in a project description shared with DCN. “Moreover, this approach minimizes excessive renovation waste associated with chasing market trends and topical themes.”
While reducing aesthetic fatigue, the approach also creates constant updates to the facade, based on the in-store purchasing decisions of guests.
“The street-side display window features irregular, unpredictable color blocks, forming a textured surface that extends as an artistic gesture of consumer engagement,” Waterfrom stated. “Rather than being meticulously designed, this artwork evolves through individual consumer interactions, leading to fleeting, changing, and uncertain outcomes.”
The installation also introduces questions surrounding consumer choices when presented with visual information, while allowing the operator to understand how purchasing choices change over time.
“Consumer actions drive this transformational energy,” the firm stated. “When individuals stand before the installation, they are prompted to contemplate the causal relationship between consumer behavior and data. Does personal choice affect data, or does data influence personal choice? This dynamic interaction between individual consumption and big data transforms the store into a tangible, interactive installation.”
Beyond the coffee-focused installations and shelving throughout Beanroom, the tasting bar features an outer facade that recalls the folded and wrinkled textures of burlap sacks used to transport unroasted coffee beans. The texturization is one example of how hidden narratives are woven into the design to connect consumers more deeply to coffee from seed to cup.
“Whether it’s the openness of circulation, the sensory resonance with roasted coffee flavors and environmental sounds, or the more abstract interpretations of technology, aesthetics, or sustainability issues, both the space and the (beanroom) itself respond without providing definitive answers,” Waterfrom said. “There is no perfect moment, only a desire to experience a broader and enduring flow.”
