Choosing a suitable office is the first challenge that many entrepreneurial firms may come up with. Usually a micro entrepreneurial firm needs flexible space to accommodate uncertain staff. On one hand, renting a large office space in one step will tremendously add the newly established firms’ financial burden; On the other hand, if the company rents a relatively small office space, it may turn out to be too crowed when the company grows. What’s worse, there may be no space for meeting room, reception room and some other programs. What exactly should the entrepreneurs do to find their office?
Underline is a multi-functional cafe which is designed and invested by LYCS Architecture. The project is located in the Eastern Software Park where lies in the center of Hangzhou. Although surrounded by highly-rent office buildings, there is no public space for communication or meeting in this area. To meet the companies’ needs of working, meeting and communicating, Underline could be changed immediately from a single-function cafe into a cafe + meeting room or cafe + office room through free combinations of its interior spaces.
Instead of over-decorated design, the designers created a peaceful atmosphere for the cafe in a modern and concise way. The facade of the cafe is made of all-glass windows with chessboard-like black frames. The concrete walls above the facade are set with the LED logo of ‘underline’. The design is quite simple but ingeniously fits into the surrounding environment.
In order to bring out a vivid effect, the designers decorated the large-scale black wall with relaxing and humorous painting.
Space I
The inner space is clean and tidy. Rows of Bookcases on the wall are made of wooden boards and metal sheets. Wooden tables with gray sofas are both comfortable and user-friendly.
Space II
Elegant and different-height chairs in the middle of the dinning area bring lively elements into this friendly place. All the books on the shelves are put away backward. This setting brings orderliness to inner space, provides the customers surprises when they pick up one book as well.
Within the entirely bright-colored space, the black bar counter appears very outstanding in stark contrast with the dinning space.
Space III
Exposed ceiling makes the cafe look higher, and also provides more possibility of the multi-functional configuration.
Space IV
Freely moving clapboards provide more possibilities for the space. With different combinations of clapboards, the whole big space is easily divided into four small spaces. At the same time, free combination of four small spaces also meet different functional requirements.
Users can change the cafe into a classroom, an office room or a meeting room in one minute. Besides of space division, the clapboards can also turn into tools for creativity. People can write and draw on the clapboards, or use them as blackboards for lessons or brainstorming.
In spite of common usage for office, Underline can house various activities with its freely changeable inner space. These activities include road shows, movie screening, banquet commercial party, etc. Besides, more ways of its space usage are going to be found out by the users. Thus, in Underline, users can costomized design thier exculsive space in a relative lower cost.
Photography by Lai Zhenyu
