The location of this project has been designated as a national preservation area for a group of traditional buildings. The area is lined with townhouses with exterior walls covered with white plaster, creating a landscape full of historical sentiment. This project involved the renovation of a 160 year-old warehouse which is facing the main street of the district into a flagship store for MILKBREW COFFEE, a brand run by a dairy farmer. The client is also famous for processing dairy products such as cheese, and we were asked to plan a café offering mainly take-out coffee for milk brewed coffee and a laboratory for the development and processing of dairy products. 

What is innovative point about this project is that by incorporating new functions into an existing building, new value is created through a synergy between the old and the new, which could not have been achieved by the existing building alone or by new elements alone. Although the building is a national important cultural property, which limits the scope of design additions, it is of great social significance in that it was completed in a historically valuable building. 

The owner also runs a recycling-oriented dairy farm, ploughing his own rice paddies to produce feed for his dairy cows, and making compost from their manure, which is then used in the paddies. They also operates this shop and cafe on the basis of the environmentally friendly concept, using cups and straws that can be decomposed using compost. The spatial plan for this project was designed while making use of the good qualities of the existing space, and is of great value in that it improves the strength of the brand through a space that is consistent with client’s sustainable concept as mentioned above. 

Specifically, because of the regulations for the protection of cultural assets, we were not allowed to make any alterations to the exterior. Whereas there were no such regulations for the interior, but we took advantage of the fact that the building has been beautifully maintained as a whole, with its mud walls, wooden planking and presence of beams, and incorporated them directly into the design as elements of the store space in the plan. 

The café, which requires the serving of coffee to take-out and standing counters, is located at the entrance side of the warehouse, and the laboratory space for dairy products was created as an independent box within the building without modifying the existing walls. The counters and wall displays shelf were made from white corian, inspired by pure white milk, and they were made independent so as not to damage the existing walls. In addition, automatic doors were added to the entrance. The idea was to create a situation in which the storehouse at first glance has the appearance of the original storehouse, yet exudes a new atmosphere on the street. These efforts not only preserved the historic building, but also sublimated it into a hybrid space that integrates the old with new functions.