MOMENT KANDA – West Exit Location
PROJECT NAME

MOMENT KANDA
– West Exit Location

CATEGORY
BAR
YEAR
2014.06
AREA
Chiyada-ku, Tokyo
OUTLINE
Bar where customers can enjoy “Hakushu” whisky. From the moment you step out of the elevator and open the door, you enter a “forest”-like environment, away from the hustle and bustle of city life where you can enjoy both the whisky and the atmosphere itself.
MOMENT KANDA – West Exit Location
MOMENT KANDA West Exit Location, located on the 7th floor of a multi-tenant building near Kanda Station in Tokyo, is a bar where customers can enjoy primarily different variations of “Hakushu”, the award winning Japanese single malt whisky brand from Suntory.
MOMENT KANDA – West Exit Location
MOMENT KANDA – West Exit Location
In the design of any bar or restaurant, having both a clarify of concept as well as achieving a sense of familiarity for customers is critical. These factors were integral in the design for this restaurant which evokes the image of a “forest”.
The Hakushu brand is known for its distillery deep in a forest surrounded by beautiful mountains and has green as its brand color. With Hakushu whiskies being the main feature of the menu, the “forest” concept of the design creates a breath of the fresh air for a bar located in the heart of the busy Kanda business area.
To achieve this design motif, closely grouped trees and greenery were used to fill the field of vision for customers visiting the bar. With this essence in mind, 12different types of Japanese maple trees used outside the window, closely grouped bars of steel and solid wood mimicking trees in a forest as well as ivy and air plants covering the ceiling are used in the design.
In addition to creating a realistic environment such as through the use of aged and aging materials to give a sense of change and growth like in a real forest, the design also has some humorous aspects such as the use of green Hakushu bottles attached to the steel bars to mimic leaves on trees.
MOMENT KANDA – West Exit Location
However, a cornerstone of this design is the irregularly shaped Douglas fir wood counter at the heat of the bar. Unlike a conventional straight edge counter, the irregular shape of the design not only creates a relaxed atmosphere but also allows customers to create their own experience by choosing where to sit. For instance, it’s possible for individual customers to sit at the concave sections of the counter or to sit in pairs or groups of three at the convex sections. This sense of freedom can be said to be another typical feature you’d expect in a forest.
One of the motivating factors behind this design approach, creating a unique atmosphere secluded from the surroundings, was the fact that the bar is located on the top of the building and features a relatively cozy floor layout. Had the bar been located on the first floor of a building with the large open layout, a totally different design approach would have been necessary. These differences can be easily seen when comparing this design with that of the MOMENT KANDA South Exit location
MOMENT KANDA – West Exit Location
text by salta