Client BARLOA, SRL.

PROJECT TYPE 4844 ft2 / 450 m2 Hospitality, Restaurant Design. 

SCOPE Architecture, Interior Design, Furniture Design. 

LOCATION Av Gustavo Mejia Ricart #132 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. 

The co founders of Barloa, commissioned the work alongside Dominican's counterpart of professional specialists to establish the thirth restaurant in Santo Domingo island. Due to the success of the initial launches, the Barloa concept has now expanded to Caribbean and soon to Miami US.

Design Overview:

The Concept - The avant-garde trend applies to the whole restaurants just as in the past. The Dominican Republic version replicates the reference styles used before such as the Modernist and Deconstructivism architecture. From deconstruction of Japanese architecture, where the elements of nature meet justified on each object of space, elements are transferred to each component of the formula, hence the alchemy what gives long life to BARLOA restaurant. The dining space exposes the implicit geometry of a Tokunoshima cabana from south coastal region of Japan, surrounded by endless dark green forest, and the presence of seafood served as starring, juxtaposed to the whole Shinto spirits from nature.

The Challenge - In this chapter the design mode turned wider its criteria when assuming to re-use an ancient building from 1960’s, in order to transform this space into the most current Japanese vision over the abstract design trend in an industrial way. Once the proposal was revised and approved by the engineering team we proceeded integrate a programing of selective demolition for existing structure, saving additional construction costs, ensuring the completion time and value added of reuse adaptive building. Application of sustainable resources and principles was assumed as a case of study to this wonderful project, where the priority was to provide the customer with the desired response, taking into account unusual materials with the capacity to surprise and bring them with new choices in architectural finishes for hospitality spaces. As can be seen was chosen the cotton ropes for a double reason, the main one for giving continuity and strengthening identity from the past restaurants baptized under the name of “Barloa” which means in maritime Spanish tongue the action to tie the boats together in the high seas. And second one meaning we wanted to demonstrate an alternative uses for manila or cotton ropes, despite being use as a material for securing goods in transporting their properties can go further to meet the standards by which were produced industrially, solving by low costs the finishes for ceiling and walls, maintenance-free and fire protection.

The space - The essence is found at the stark contrast of neutrals within the dining area, where finishes, furniture and fixtures despite sharing the same flat they seem to lie far separated; I wanted to achieve a sense of humbleness but at the same time minimalist and elegant. The dining area is distributed from the center to the perimeter, In its perimeter and following the direction of clock’s needle begins the food counters, then continued over the lounge bar and finally down to the chill out area. The principle material for this project consists of cotton cordes, steel, timber and concrete; materials had to reflect on natural elements such as vegetation and earth, this is an intrinsic ideology of traditional Japanese culture where people seek a connection with nature