The materiality of Seoul's architecture informed the interiors of this Blue Bottle Coffee cafe, which Schemata Architects has completed with steel surfaces and red-brick fixtures.
The sparsely-decorated cafe is situated in Seoul's artsy Seongsu neighbourhood, surrounded by craft coffee bars and organic eateries that occupy disused warehouses.

This is the first Blue Bottle Coffee cafe to appear in South Korea, but Schemata Architects has already designed several of the brand's Tokyo branches.
Among them is one in the city's Roppongi area that's almost entirely lined in basswood, and another in the Kiyosumi-Shirakawa locale that's topped by a plant-filled atrium.

In the new three-floor Seongsu location, each level is dedicated to a different use. The cafe has been designated to the basement ? a decision made by the practice after seeing that the ground floor overlooked a busy road often blocked with traffic. "Having the cafe in the basement provides a calm and peaceful space away from the bustle on the ground," it explained.

At its centre is a huge stainless-steel service counter, above which a section of the ceiling has been cut away to provide views to the upper floor.
Large stacks of red bricks ? a material typically used to clad the facades of buildings in Seongsu ? have been dotted throughout the space, where brand merchandise like packets of coffee and mugs can be displayed.

"As a mark of respect for [Seongsu's] history, we decided to also use brick i...