Venue 54 Pop-up Restaurant in Riga | Open Architecture Design

Venue 54 illustrates that the power lies in the idea and that one can achieve a feeling of luxury on a low budget by embracing techniques like upcycling.

Chef Inars Birmanis was looking for a location and designer for his latest temporary dining experience. He always aims to make patrons feel like guests. It therefore made sense to choose an apartment. Since Open AD have their own pop-up office in the Philosophers Residence, the team turned to the developer to ask about free space. Apartment 54 was available, but unfinished. A buyer could show up at any time. This unknown future and instability made it the perfect match for Birmanis's initiative.

That sense of incompleteness and the unknown inspired Open AD's design concept. The design solutions are affordable, adaptable and easy to transport, also rooted in the ideas of responsible reuse. Every piece has the chance at another life once the restaurant shuts its doors for the last time.

Open AD has a collection of offcuts and leftover construction materials, which served as both inspiration and source material for the interior. Most of the furniture is handmade, the result of informal on-site workshops under the guidance of lead architect Zane Tetere-Sulce. For weeks, designer Beatrise Dzerve, chef Birmanis himself, his friends, craftsmen Aldis Buss and Agnese Landrate worked side by side,  constructing the furniture and accessories with their own hands. The pieces are inherently adaptable to ensure that the space can be used for seminars, larger banquets and similar events.

The scaffolding acts as both a room divider and vertical garden space. As part of the brief, Birmanis specified that he wanted to grow some ingredients on site, to illustrate that that the distance “from farm to table” is in our own hands.

Having arrived at the table, guests will notice the contrast between the table setting and the "creative chaos” of the space. The table setting is deliberately elegant to put focus on and complement the beauty of the food. Tableware is from the Eclipse line by local Vaidava Ceramics in partnership with ceramic artist Laima Grigone. Haphazardly scattered grains of salt tie it in with the surroundings.