The story began with the vision of famous Catalan chef Albert Adrià to create a restaurant project "outside this enigmatic world" that would reflect his cuisine and career. His vision materialized when the winners of the Pritzker Prize 2017 RCR Arquitectes designed their design idea in watercolors. Through an incredibly creative and close collaboration, as well as Neolith's experience and technical know-how, the magical was created outside this world of Enigma.
Restaurant in Barcelona. Original design for the Organic Space
RCR Arquitectes and Architect P. Llimona designed an organic space full of curves and narrow corridors for the Spanish restaurant. The key to ensuring the uniformity of the watercolor design was absolute precision.
Having worked on the design proposal for three years, Adrià wanted to guarantee that the result was perfect for his passionate project. The chef wanted to create an engaging environment to captivate his guests. The cooking style and menu of the chef are strongly influenced by the surroundings, so the interior had to reflect this.
The crucial moment in terms of design came when RCR, in collaboration with architect Pau Llimona, designed a watercolor paint the size of two A3 papers, which was to be applied to the floors, walls, bathrooms, kitchen tops, lockers and air extraction systems. However, a watercolor drawing had never been done on Sintered Stone, so it represents an unprecedented challenge. Carlos Garcia, Product Designer at TheSize explains: "We had to expand the original design while trying not to lose the quality of definition offered by the original design. Each pixel was equal to two meters in the final plane. "Through R & D, Neolith developed the technology to recreate the design on slabs, producing a perfect replica of the design.
Once this objective had been achieved, it was necessary to obtain an exact color match, since the green and blue tones required are unusual tones for sintered surfaces. The intensity of the colors had to adapt to the other materials and decorations of the restaurant to achieve a unified environment, completely overwhelming the guests. Using Neolith's proprietary digital printing technology, the architect's design project was fully respected.
The architects wanted every slab to have an irregular texture like Neolith's Riverwashed, but with a subtle sheen to provide a surface that was multi-sensory, eye-catching and tempting to touch. Neolith is a contemporary material with many properties. RCR Arquitectes have been surprised by its capabilities and now use it for other projects.
The floor presented the biggest challenge because of its size. Each slab is unique and must be perfectly assembled to provide a continuous design. However, the only way to get a complete view of the puzzle required a creative solution to the problems and a change of perspective. Neolith initially installed the entire floor off the site and used a drone to take pictures from above, ensuring that there were no inconsistencies.
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