Blue Bottle Coffee at West Bund by atelier tao+c
Tucked into the evolving West Bund precinct of Shanghai, Blue Bottle Coffee by atelier tao+c occupies a site deeply rooted in the city’s industrial past.
Once home to the Shanghai Cement Factory and set against the backdrop of a historic shipyard, the café quietly acknowledges its surroundings while offering a calm, contemporary retreat.
In a part of the city now reimagined as a destination for riverside walks and outdoor gatherings, the project engages directly with its context—drawing from the material language of its industrial past while offering new ways for the public to inhabit the waterfront. The design is shaped by two slanted timber-framed structures—referred to by the architects as “canvases”—that hover within the volume, breaking up the open plan without hard boundaries. Their soft geometry and varied heights give the impression of movement, as if shaped by the breeze that drifts in from the Huangpu River. They serve not just as visual features, but also as infrastructure—integrating lighting, air conditioning, and services into their folded forms.
Beneath these timber structures, a sequence of Douglas-fir shelving and partitioning introduces quiet separation between back-of-house functions and the café itself. Every surface is considered, and many of them serve multiple roles—walls are also menus, counters fold into seating, and shelving seamlessly transitions into kitchen entryways. It becomes an environment that feels purposeful but unforced, warm in tone and restrained in expression.
In a clear nod to its setting, much of the seating and the coffee bar itself are composed of prefabricated concrete blocks—a direct reference to the Shanghai Cement Factory that occupied the site until 2009. These blocks, paired with pine timber, form the benches, stools and counter surfaces throughout, with the outdoor seating continuing this theme to blur the lines between interior and exterior. The concrete modules were prefabricated offsite and simply assembled onsite, underscoring a casual but deliberate construction method that aligns with the tactile quality of the overall palette.
Rather than offering a nostalgic rendering of the site’s past, the project quietly reworks it—privileging texture, function, and subtle forms of engagement with place. In a landscape where rapid development often overshadows memory, Blue Bottle Coffee at West Bund presents a grounded and sensitive approach to adaptive reuse. atelier tao+c brings together presence and performance in equal measure—an everyday setting rendered with precision, calm, and care.
