Situated in the office lobby of the Kerry Center in Jing An, Huma is a new bistro focused on modern Yunnan cuisine and our latest collaboration with the restauranteurs of Bloom. Given the vastness and busyness of the site, our natural instinct was to enclose the restaurant to offer an intimate and calm environment, while maintaining connectivity to its surroundings. As an independent volume, the bistro is defined by a quiet rectilinear shell, carefully proportioned and inserted into place. Like a traditional wooden Chinese lunch box, once opened reveals its contents within a geometry of simple voids and lines inside. Guests have full view of the dishes being prepared, a coming together of hand-made rice noodles, ample fresh vegetables and herbs is a feast for both the eyes and stomach.
As the dining room’s centrepiece, a composition of large ceramic plates hovers over a communal banquet sized table and suffuses the space with softness and colour. The ceramic plates, which are painstakingly hand thrown and glazed in traditional tones by local potters in Jingdezhen, are the results of lengthy and often unpredictable trials with large format vessels. Their wobbles and imperfections are very much apparent and add beautifully to the character of each piece. The natural warmth of Luan wood permeates throughout the space. It’s veneer is cut continuously from three logs and all of its sheets carefully catalogued and installed so as to present up close uninterrupted impressions of natural landscapes.
Status: Built
Location: Shanghai, CN
Firm Role: Photography
Additional Credits: Designer: TOMYU STUDIO
