COFFEE HOUSE

Location: The Hague
Status: Educational
Program: Cafe
Year: 2019


1. Markman Ellis, Eighteenth-Century Coffee-House Culture, vol 1, Routledge, 2017 The Prussian nobleman Baron Charles Louis von Pollnitz, who visited London in 1728, described coffee-houses as one of the great pleasures of the city. A place where people could talk of Business and News, read the Papers, and often look at one another.1 This coffeehouse’s aspect of meeting and exchanging ideas between individuals used to be the main function of the coffeehouse typology. 

Due to the commercialisation of coffee as a take-away product, the old-fashioned role of a coffeehouse as a meetingspace is no longer seen as a requirement. In this project the aim of the coffeehouse is to focus on this role in particular to create a living room for the city.

Different degrees of intimacy are studied through scale and material. An large open and light room acts as the modern coffeehouse space where the bar is situated and functions as the main room of the place. Several smaller spaces can be seen through carefully positioned openings in the walls. These spaces are designed to have a domestic atmospere where customers can meet, talk and read papers. 

A wooden element in the centre of the building touches every room and serves many functions: a central staircase , toilet facility, bathroom, bookshelves and a kitchen.

Published in ArgusAnnual 2019 
(a collection of the best and most inspiring architectural works of the TU Delft)

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