The Craftery by SUBKO
2100 sq. ft
Byculla, Mumbai
Experience centre
April 2021 - July 2021
Secluded in the industrial layout of Byculla, the decrepit warehouse was endowed with a new lease of life with SUBKO’s arrival. With a layered history of being a former printing press, the expansive warehouse was overhauled with the processes of adaptive reuse. What sets the venue apart is its unconventional approach to consciously blur the threshold between the process and the product. It was an ode to the plantation to table journey that allowed the patrons to become one with the various steps of the complex procedures. The craft and submission to the process were the undisputed protagonists in the spatial scheme.
Materiality dons an industrial persona across the Craftery, a palette that furnishes humble materials in a newfound light. A coalition between exposed brick, crafted metal, Indian spotted marble, concrete, textured glass, teakwood, granite, and textured finishes on walls create the overruling canvas of finishes.
Ingeniously designed barn doors separate the Experience Zone from the Roasting Section suavely. SUBKO’s two coffee roasters occupy their rightful positions, bordering the central circulation passage. A Sensory Lab nook has been created for coffee cupping and interactive tasting processes for which anthropometrically suited furniture has been created.
The monolithic textured granite bar sprawls across the length of the space, accommodating a pastry bar and a set of two coffee bars on either end — the Espresso and Bloom Bars. The bar, despite its colossal scale, seems to levitate weightlessly with its downlit profile over the wooden flooring bordered by a copper and teakwood inlay.
The Experience Zone poses as a versatile space that can assume a community and alcove layout as per need. The custom furniture herein is a matrix of teakwood, woven jute, and metal finishes.
Perceivably divergent in its design language from the larger blueprint, the Cold Room is reigned by a medley of monochromes and umber teak tones. Segregated spatially yet visually connected to the overall layout via a glass and metal partition system, the Cold Room is the locus of craft baking. The clear-glass partition allows customers to be privy to the baking processes as they happen
Created under the siege of excruciating challenges posed by the Pandemic’s restrictions, the venue is a testimony of resilience for the studio as this project witnessed the coming together of detail and process comprehension like never before! The design endeavours have focused on preserving the sanctity of the brand’s mission to serve homegrown offerings that bring nostalgia and contemporary design under one roof
DRAWINGS
