Materia Bakery | Luis Carbonell

Materia was developed in a commercial shop in La Condesa, a neighborhood with a relevant historical, cultural and commercial background, located in the central-western area of ​​Mexico City. The area acts as a meeting point and a transit hub with a great offer of coffee shops. It also contains the vibrant urban image influenced by different artistic currents through the years, such as Art Deco.

The premise of the Bakery comes from the intention of feeding based on raw materials, seeking to eliminate the perception and predisposition that traditional pastry or bakery is the opposite of a healthy, complete and beneficial diet.

Inside the kitchen, it is intended to work under a methodology with an approach focused entirely on the ingredients and their processes. Considering from the beginning recipes with a nutritional perspective, it favors superfoods through cooking methods that extract or enhance their best qualities and offer high quality products, therefore eliminating the guilt of eating a tasty pastry.

The design approach that would house this though was established in the same way: raw material as raw material. Architecture made from its most basic elements, expressed crudely, arranged one above the other, and, in some cases, treated experimentally, cooked on site.

Wood, steel and concrete are the protagonists of the assembly in the adaptation of the space, providing solutions for the use and separation of rooms, for the exhibition or the manipulation of the products, as well as their consumption.

Those materials are complemented by two color schemes: brown and terracotta inside, alluding to the earth, the warmth and shelter of clay and fire; in contrast, to the outside, the olive green plays with the vegetal palette through the windows and towards the trees on the sidewalk.

From the outside, the façade is contained within the urban image in its horizontal spread. It uses a new pattern that arises from the graphic exploration of the baguette shape, simplified, abstracted and applied to the pattern of the ironworks. It plays with the French-style motifs of the area, and then folds in, opening all the thresholds, inhaling that exterior and exhaling the smells of the kitchen to the outside.

The pattern appears again on the inside, translated and extrapolated within the clay tiles, creating a visual focal point behind the display and sale area.

The rest of the spatial elements are saturated by new, utilitarian furniture. The walls become exhibitors and carriers of products. Some move and rotate to separate or open the space but still exhibiting the merchandise. And the rest become tables or chairs, utilitarian and versatile pieces.

The columns acquire other functions as well. They become high tables, racks and display boards, or they maintain their initial function, acting as the supporting structure that carries the weight of the central concrete table. The buffer element: a piece that distributes the entire space around it, drives the traffic around its perimeter, making it flow through each space and each microenvironment resolved within the small shop. This piece was conceived in collaboration with Arch. Kobayashi, and was executed with his team through an experimental exercise, seeking for a formal result as part of the exploration process itself. Some controlling inputs were applied as guidelines, but the volume itself was allowed to take shape by the forces of gravity in play with the concrete and the flexible formwork.

Materia ends up being the natural expression of its elements, pieces placed and superimposed on each other, exposed to processes and gravity, and arranged between themselves, the spaces and the activities which they host.

Collaborators:

Jessica Young – Head of Project

Fernanda Lecanda – Project Coordinator

Arturo Núñez / Operadora – Construction Management and Execution

Pablo Kobayashi – Concrete Work

Dos44 – Specialized Carpentry and Ironwork (indoors furniture)

Andrea Young – Lighting Design

Cantera Estudio – Marketing and Design

Juliana de Lasse / Salmiana – Garden and Landscape Design

Camila Cossio - Photography