Along the Streams of Light: A Harmonious Blend of Tradition and Modernity

Hao Chun Chang's Award-Winning Restaurant Design Reimagines Korean Cuisine

Named "Ribbon", the restaurant symbolizes a festive atmosphere, a nod to special days and holidays. The designer has skillfully used patterns, lines, irregular cuts, and rhythmic combinations to create a sense of ceremony. The design is further enhanced by a generous amount of natural lighting, expanding the visual perception with consistency. The precise yet fluid interior lighting design adds elegance to the ambiance in shades of brown and gray.

The restaurant's visual identity is integrated with a color palette featuring stone and wood, creating a harmonious environment that strikes a balance between bulkiness and gentleness. The half-circle plaza in front of the restaurant's facade and the tilted staircases with embedded light strips contribute to a sense of earnestness. The quotation-mark-shaped wooden frame and the diamond shape pattern on the door panel with diverse use of colors create an exotic feeling that attracts visual focus and attention.

Upon entering the restaurant, one can immediately sense that the designer has reinterpreted and repackaged the Korean cuisine with a modern technique and semi-industrial style. A consistent design language with diverse changes of lighting and volumes are the main elements that weave into the space's gene. The curved light strips and the flooring transitions between wooden and stone materials both contribute to an intuitive sense of spatial transition.

The restaurant's design also prioritizes functionality. The embedded light strips in the kitchen and dining areas serve to divide and guide the flow subconsciously. The kitchen is designed to be semi-open-plan with a bar counter arrangement. Through the transparent glass panels, customers can easily look into the kitchen for the smoked barbeque display and the cooking process. The suspended shelving allows convenient arrangement of utensils, adding a sense of neatness to the restaurant.

Despite the challenges of ensuring privacy while introducing a large amount of sunlight, the designer successfully used floor-to-ceiling glass panels and shading to create a comfortable dining environment. The illumination of the space is improved without becoming too harsh to the eye. The overall open-floor plan and the translucency increases the use of electricity during the day.

For its innovative design and exceptional execution, "Along the Streams of Light" was awarded Silver in A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award in 2022. This prestigious award is given to top-of-the-line, creative, and professionally remarkable designs that illustrate outstanding expertise and innovation. These designs, admired for their strong technical characteristics and splendid artistic skill, showcase a remarkable level of excellence and introduce positive feelings, amazement, and wonder.