The Puya-Tacos de Puebla eatery concept draws inspiration from the traditional Mexican kitchen and the outdoor courtyard of the family home. where large families gather to cook together for the holidays. The main purpose was to recreate these feelings of intimacy and liveliness, while designing a sleeker space that would work as a counter eatery in a mall like environment like Rockefeller Center. We tried achieving this through materials, lighting and layout.

The dimmable LED lighting has a warm color temperature and it is placed and focused so that it is uneven on the walls and on the floor, thus purposely trying to achieve an intimate feeling, even if the space is located in the Rockefeller Center Concourse.
The contemporary Louis Poulsen lights are juxtaposed to the more traditional finishes, creating an interesting contrast.

The hood took quite some planning and many meetings with the GC to make sure it satisfied all the technical requirements while still keeping the desired shape of a simple massive brick hood with a textured stucco finish.

The walls are finished with a rough stucco texture like the hood, to confer a feeling of thickness. 3 different shades of yellow were used and 1 shade of pink, to highlight different areas.

The hand painted Mexican tiles are used differently from how they would be used traditionally. Usually decorative tiles are placed as borders; in our project we used the decorative tiles in a repetitive way, to cover the counter and the floor, as if they had spilled out of control, while giving at the same time a structure and order to the design and blurring the rigid separation between the staff behind the counter and the customers.

The arches are an element found in many traditional kitchens, inside and also in courtyards. They are also the shape of the small door to the adobo outdoor ovens. We used the arch here, in a couple of places, as an archetype to evoke this family environment, while making them very symmetrical and contemporary.

Rockefeller Center required distinct spaces (kitchen, customer seating area, bar area, prep area, wash area) . The total sf is very small so we had to design many layouts until we agreed on this one. Everything is small but allows the client to use the space as required.

The counter wraps around the space starting on the left side, continuing at the back and then again on the right side. The hood was placed as close to the customers as possible in this location,. The idea was to try to blur the separation between customers and staff and have the customers participate , at least visually, in the preparation of the colorful tasty food.

No plastics or plastic components were used in the finishes. The Mexican tiles are made of local clay with no additives. The fake beams are made of reclaimed wood. The wood table are reclaimed wood. All the walls are finished with a lime based stucco which absorbs CO2 emissions, making it a very sustainable product to use.