JSPA's The Whisky Bar concept offers a sensory-driven social space for Shanxi Province

2024-12-27T11:31:00-05:00

A new whiskey bar concept in Shanxi Province from the French Beijing-based studio JSPA Design has gotten our attention following the project’s completion earlier this year.

Photo credit: Liu Xinghao

The space was made out of the former two-story podium for the building that is occupied above by an apartment complex. A new facade was enacted made with cast-in-place concrete panels while interaction with the street and city is further enabled by installing operable folding windows and a concrete bench usable on either side.

Photo credit: Liu Xinghao

The repetition of a concrete arch grants a further recognizable character to the space using the existing architecture of the building as a kind of identity. On the second floor, the notion of intimacy is predominant and created via a series of three small alcoves which are again covered by a cast-in arch that conceals small benches and a fireplace while offering views of a feature "showcas...

Designing for the Night

2015-03-13T15:10:00-04:00

When I speak with a student about nightlife they have something different in mind than a 65-year old town planning manager. In the municipalities, finding contacts is difficult - often nobody feels responsible or capable of speaking. That should change.

There are sleepy cities and cities that never sleep. There are cities famed for their raucous nightlife, and others whose adolescent residents dream of leaving. According to the German urban scientist Jakob F. Schmid, interviewed for DW.DE, "Nightlife often defines the character of entire streets or districts." Schmid runs the "City After Eight - Management of the Urban Night Economy" project with Thomas Krüger, which is funded by the German government.

Looking at a variety of German cities including Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfurt, the researchers mapped nightlife "with online recommendation platforms as the basis for the data." The hazy blue results indicate that various forms a city's nightlife may take. In the famed-party city Berlin, for example, hotspots are diffused throughout the expansive metropolis. In a traditional German city, on the other hand, the nightlife tends to be concentrated "on the city center, usually on the streets directly surrounding the center proper."

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JSPA's The Whisky Bar concept offers a sensory-driven social space for Shanxi Province

Designing for the Night