The project is a social retailing and bar for the young generation. The design team redefined boundaries, function, and created a green jungle which was full of the spirit of urbanism with restrained but balanced design.

Innovation:
The site is located at the southeast corner of MTE. Although it is along the street, there is no independent entrance along the street. The boundary of the site creates a rectangular space of 8 meters long, 5 meters wide, 4 meters high and 160 cubic meters in volume. The design team used different opening strategies on the four sides of the box. Stripped of decoration, the architectural structure of the site consists of four T-shaped columns, which is a kind of cross-symmetrical spatial structure.

Creativity:
With a width of 5 meters, the design team arbitrarily arranged a 1.2-meter wide island bar with a built-in rotating caterpillar, allowing customers to see the different flavors of WAT cocktail bottles in an unprecedented way. The 1.2 meter high floating central island bar is surrounded by a 30-centimeter-wide table, where people can lean on, play with empty small square bottles, chat with friends, and smile at strangers. A group of LED display devices is suspended directly above the bar. The running lights play “SOOOO WAT” in a circular way, which becomes a kind of the visual output of the brand and presents infinite possibilities for future content.

Functionality:
The team designed two functional walls on the north and south sides, which are accurate to centimeters, with various refrigeration equipments, strong and weak electrical panels as well as extreme storage space concealed in a delicate way. Two parallel functional walls enclose a hollow box that connects the east and west, allowing people to freely enter and leave MTE. On the north side, along the inner street, the design team only left a small opening in the inner area of the bar. Besides, a horizontal refrigerator was used to increase the operating surface and display products, which also became a window to interact with visitors in the inner street of MTE. On the south side, along the street surface, the design team transformed the original sliding Windows into folding Windows, blurring the sense of boundary between indoor and outdoor space, and conversing with the city streets. The extended windowsill serves as MTE’s memory of the site and becomes a long bar for indoor as well as outdoor space.

Sustainability:
The south side and the outside-facing surface are open to lower energy consumption of air conditioning and machine. As the lighting requirement of retail mode is not as strict as that of bar mode in the day, large window brings in more natural daylight to reduce artificial lighting. Due to distinct requirements of two modes, lighting fixture that can adjust the level of brightness was adopted. Terrazzo, a sustainable and composite material made of recycled marble and quartz stone offcuts, effectively reduces cost and environmental pollution.