WEFT balances nostalgia and modernity in the architectural design of a fast casual restaurant.
WEFT, a Kuwait-based architectural studio, has designed Pattie Pattie, a restaurant in Kuwait inspired by American fast food culture and mid-century architecture of California. This locally developed concept blends nostalgia with modernity to embody the West Coast lifestyle. The 90m2 restaurant was built on a 365m2 plot and designed to express playfulness and vibrancy through a playful approach to industrial elements, bold colors, and design-driven accessories such as Talk Tubes, Heatherwick’s Spun Chairs and a dedicated play area with swings. The building’s design was born from the limitations imposed by applicable regulations for the plot. The exterior space had no particular restrictions as long as the vertical structure was contained within the given building size. As a result, the design features a large cantilevered canopy cutting across the full width of the plot in a dynamic diagonal composition creating a visually stunning identity. Then, the plot was raised to frame the building and further enhance the scale of this relatively small restaurant. The building’s orientation facing north and the large canopy protect the building from the harsh sun and allow the use of jumbo panels of clear low-emissivity glass to create a vibrant restaurant interior filled with lots of natural daylight.
The architectural aesthetic of Pattie Pattie embraces a hard-wearing industrial look and feel that is curated to deliver a fully cohesive and striking experience. The structural columns were intricately designed to achieve an elegant and slender look. Double columns fused together with a “zigzag” bracing were used in the high load-bearing corners of the building to carry the weight of a 7.5m cantilevered canopy. .
No services were placed behind the ceiling to achieve the thinnest possible canopy that cuts through the building from the outside towards the interior. The ducts were designed to embrace their presence, with oval ducts clad in brushed aluminum with laser-cut perforations replacing standard grills. The exterior seating area is clad in two types of granite, chosen for their hard-wearing and long-lasting properties, creating an aesthetic complementing the colorful and rigidly built architecture.
During the project, WEFT also designed custom picnic tables and interior chairs, embracing the challenges of local furniture fabrication in Kuwait. The picnic tables were designed to be laser-cut from steel sheets, machine-bent, powder coated, and assembled in place with nuts and bolts, ensuring maximum precision and minimum waste. Text description by the architects.
