Alvan Suen's Innovative Fusion: Ricky's Kitchen

Reinterpreting Hong Kong's Unique Landscape in Restaurant Design

The inspiration for the design came from the unique scenery of Hong Kong. The city, often referred to as a "concrete forest", is known for its high-rise buildings and narrow streets. This is represented in the design through the use of a "one-line sky" scenery, a feature wall that symbolizes the city's concrete forest, and a cantilever structure that abstractly recreates the feeling of walking through the city's narrow streets.

What sets this design apart is its successful reinterpretation of Hong Kong's unique elements while maintaining the brand's identity. The feature wall, for instance, uses materials that represent the city's concrete forest, geometry that mimics building facades with balconies, and lighting that mimics the households in the buildings. The ceiling design, on the other hand, uses white LED lights to represent the "Linear Sky Exposure" of Hong Kong and Leon lights to imitate the long exposure photography of the city's highways.

The design was realized using computer-generated scripts and prefabricated panels for the feature wall. The project was primarily created in the computer, with rendering used extensively to test different materials and calculate lux and color temperature for all lightings. A virtual reality walk-through was also created to help the contractors understand the project better.

The restaurant, which has a capacity of 66 and covers an area of 1358 sq.ft., was designed with a "T" layout to create four semi-private zones for different sizes of gatherings. The design also includes benches with movable tables for flexibility in catering to different groups of guests.

The project, which is located in K11 Art Mall, Kowloon, Hong Kong, was started in June 2019 and completed in November 2019. One of the main challenges faced during the design process was preserving the local elements of Hong Kong while incorporating Japanese elements. This was achieved through various expressions on the traditions and cultures with representation in the spaces and choice of materials.

In conclusion, Alvan Suen's design for Ricky's Kitchen is a unique interpretation of Hong Kong's unique urban landscape. The design, which won the Golden A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award in 2020, is a testament to the designer's ability to fuse different elements into a cohesive and engaging design.