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Bar & Leisure Toby Maxwell speaks to designers shaping enticing spaces, and we assess a few examples of projects that have harnessed uniquely creative ideas to set themselves apart in a highly competitive hospitality field

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Edited by Toby maxwell

Christophe Penasse and Ana Milena Hernández, co-founders of design studio Masquespacio, explain why challenging established design expectations is a key part of creating innovative spaces…

What is your own background and what was the path that led you to working within hospitality architecture and design?

Ana is an interior designer and Christophe is a marketeer. At the outset, we started focusing on residential projects, but quickly realised that hospitality could offer us the opportunity to be more artistic and creative.

At the same time, we have a driven passion for travelling and eating, and we found that we organically gravitated towards hospitality design.

Restaurant Ichi Station hired Masquespacio to extend its brand identity from a purely takeaway focus to include the dining space. Image Credit: www.Luisbeltran.Eu

What defines your studio’s approach to projects in this sector?

For us, each brand is completely different and so we develop a tailor-made concept for each of the projects we work on. There is generally no project for us that is similar to a past one – our obsession is to innovate every time, even if the business model aims to attract masses. At the same time, we seek to challenge the established standards.

We try to question the status quo, so, for example, we ask why a burger restaurant needs to be industrial or 1980s American-styled, or why a coffee shop needs to be full of plants and wood. Our projects Bun Burgers in Milan, Italy, and Mo in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, demonstrated different ways of approaching these spaces.

Restaurant Ichi Station hired Masquespacio to extend its brand identity from a purely takeaway focus to include the dining space. Image Credit: www.Luisbeltran.Eu

What does the future hold for hospitality design in the short and long term?

We have to confess that we are a bit worried about the thematisation of spaces and the desperation to make them Instagrammable. It converts spaces purely [to] a marketing tool and, although it can create a unique experience in the short term, it loses the focus on long-lasting models where the experience seeks to match product and experience quality at the same level.

This could affect the long-time durability of it and remove the focus from product plus experience, to experience only. On the other hand, we are step-by-step getting away from the luxury trend to a new luxury based on sustainable materials and a more minimalistic design approach where ‘less is more’ is getting stronger.

What recent project presented a particularly interesting or unusual design challenge?

One of our latest projects in Milan for restaurant Ichi Station started from an already existing brand with three spaces offering creative and high-quality takeaway sushi. The client hired us with the aim to extend his brand identity to a dining space, instead of the purely takeaway focus.

The very strong identity was based on the concept of travelling where Ichi Station was the destination to stop to have your sushi. The client also wanted some sort of connection with ‘Japan in space’. We proposed to convert the Ichi Station restaurants into stations of the future, which would relate to a very innovative sushi food menu.

We integrated big, round windows inside the space and seating that could relate to Japan, although with the emphasis on a futuristic approach. This way we were able to avoid the saturated and old-fashioned Japanese references, like wood and the street kanji signs that you see in Japanese restaurants all around the world.

Restaurant Ichi Station hired Masquespacio to extend its brand identity from a purely takeaway focus to include the dining space. Image Credit: www.Luisbeltran.Eu

The new scheme and aesthetic also gave the business the opportunity to change its menu without having the restriction of relating it solely to Japan. Through lighting, we were also able to transform the space for both day and night vibes. www.masquespacio.com