interiors – bars & restaurants noma
SITUATED between two lakes and in the community of Christiania, the new noma restaurant is built on the site of a protected ex-military warehouse once used to store mines for the Royal Danish Navy. “Our collaboration with noma chef and
co-owner René Redzepi, and the noma team, has been brewing ever since I had my first dinner there 14 years ago,” says Bjarke Ingels, founding partner of BIG. “Similar to our own idea of hedonistic
sustainability – where the more sustainable city is also the most enjoyable city to live in – noma has pioneered a cuisine built upon shared values for creativity and sustainability,” he says. Central to BIG’s design was the idea of
dissolving the restaurant’s individual functions and organising them as a collection of separate yet connected buildings. A total of eleven spaces, each tailored to their specific needs and built of the materials best suited for their functions, are clustered around the kitchen. “The new noma dissolves the traditional
idea of a restaurant into its constituent parts and reassembles them in a way that puts the chefs at the heart of it all. Every part of the restaurant experience - the arrival, the lounge, the barbeque, the wine selection and the private company - is all clustered around the chefs,” explains Ingels.
The award-winning restaurant noma worked with Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to create its new home as a restaurant village just outside of Copenhagen’s city centre.
“From their central position, they have a
perfect overview to every corner of the restaurant while allowing every single guest to follow what would traditionally happen behind the scenes. Each ‘building within the building’ is connected by glass covered paths that allow chefs and guests to follow the changes in weather, daylight and seasons—making the natural environment an integral part of the culinary experience.” The noma kitchen features an oversized
hood hovering over the chefs. From here, the chefs can oversee the entire kitchen and guest areas, including the dining room and adjacent private dining room. These spaces are made of stacked timber planks that resemble piled wood at a lumber yard. A large skylight and an expansive set of
windows that slide reveal the outdoor permagarden. Outside, three free-standing glass houses provide for the restaurant’s garden, test kitchen and bakery. Guests can walk through each of the
surrounding buildings to experience a variety of Nordic materials and building techniques: the barbecue is a giant walk-in hut and the lounge looks and feels like a giant, cozy fireplace made entirely of brick inside and out. In-between the individual buildings are spaces enclosed with glass, allowing guests and the noma team to roam in constant connection with nature and the changing seasons. The historic 100m long single-story
warehouse completes the circle of buildings surrounding the kitchen. BIG preserved the raw shell of the warehouse’s concrete and inserted a huge massive wooden shelf for storage and display. All of the back-of-house functions are located here, including the prep kitchen, fermentation labs, fish tanks, terrarium, ant farm and break-out areas for staff. Guests walking alongside the building
can get occasional glimpses of the restaurant’s behind-the-scenes activities and experimentations.
www.big.dk 18
leisuredab.co.uk
Images: Rasmus Hjortshoj
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