‘Uccello Table & Lamp’ that is designed being inspired from the novel 'Bluebird' is a work that made an effort to deliver the most intuitive and emotional feelings to users.

Uccello Table & Lamp, image courtesy Monocomplex

Uccello Table & Lamp, image courtesy Monocomplex

The frame of table and lamp is made being connected with pipes to let people remind of branches, and for the objet bird, cute bird could be made through waxing.

Uccello Table & Lamp, image courtesy Monocomplex

Uccello Table & Lamp, image courtesy Monocomplex

When one reads a book or drinking coffee on the table, a bird sings sitting on a branch. Even though it doesn't sing, the sitting bird shall deliver emotional feelings to users.

Uccello Table & Lamp, image courtesy Monocomplex

Uccello Table & Lamp, image courtesy Monocomplex

+ Project facts

Project : Uccello (side table & lamp) , November 2011
Design: MONOCOMPLEX design studio (located in Seoul, South Korea)
Material : Birch wood(Finland), Steel, Bronze
Size : Table : 600(W) x 400(D) x 600(H) / Lamp : 300(W) x 300(D) x 1000(H)

+ About

Monocomplex is a design studio started up in Janually 2011 by south korean designers Jangwon Cho, Eunsang Hwang, Hyunwoo Park and Taemin Kim. Monocomplex is composed of four people with each different personality with the purpose of joyful communication. It intends to perform a design play containing 'simple' philosophy and sincerity in the world mixed up with ambiguity, complexity, and diversity.

The members have showed structural, formative, and experimental approach of MONOCOMPLEX with various viewpoints through interior design and various exhibition and contest exhibit awards. They study and create new ideas in the realms of product design, furniture and lighting.

They represent various works not being bound to writer's own thoughts through furniture, lighting, and design props that are most familiar to the public. Their collaborative efforts have created some of the most interesting modern pieces. In the recent times, Monocomplex is in the spotlight as a one of up-and-coming korean design studio.

The ‘Brownstone’ is a cocktail lounge located in the Surpass Court of Yonjia Lu 570, emerging epicenter of Shanghai night life. It was developed as a prototype for a venue of new concept in co-operation with 'Blue Horizon Hospitality Group' (Blue Frog).

'Brownstone' Cocktail Lounge, image courtesy Kokaistudios

The project combines a simple and efficient layout, partly suggested by the limited dimensions of the venue, with the complex and redundant interplay of textures and custom-made elements concurring to define the sophisticated atmosphere and the strong identity of the place, a one-of-a-kind experience lousily inspired, in the intentions of the client, to the decadent turn-of-the-Century French 'Salons'.

'Brownstone' Cocktail Lounge, image courtesy Kokaistudios

The layout accommodates in 120 sqm up to 80 seats of two different heights and typologies, reconfigurable in different settings and densities according to the situations and includes, a bar counter with two parallel cocktail stations, a state of the art DJ booth and a back-of-house area with a small kitchen with annex storage space.

'Brownstone' Cocktail Lounge, image courtesy Kokaistudios

The central part, developed around the bar counter and the DJ booth, is furnished with high seats and stools and is enclosed by a perimeter of wood finished built-in counters, same height as the bar counter, defining the edges and the access to the raised lounge platforms around it. The floor is a mosaic of small tiles of 4 different types of stone, alternatively matte or polished, creating vibrating reflections of the natural light.

'Brownstone' Cocktail Lounge, image courtesy Kokaistudios

The raised lounge areas offer a lower and more comfortable seating option, with leather armchairs and sofas organized in 6 clusters around low stone-finished coffee tables. Floor and fixed furniture are finished in dark wood, the walls in red bricks. Wooden framed mirrors with concealed red neon accents expand the space with reflections and indirect views. The color palette for the loose furniture's upholstery is inspired to the 'peacock's feather'.

'Brownstone' Cocktail Lounge, image courtesy Kokaistudios

Raw natural materials, wood or stone floor finishes and red bricks walls, are combined with precious custom-made surfaces used as highlights: special designed back-lit lattice panels, a combination of dark coated metal and colored acrylics, provide a translucent screening to the 4 windows at the background and to the bottle shelves behind the bar counter. The depth of the elements defining this pattern, yet another variation of the 'peacock's feather recurrent theme, allows a multiplicity of transparencies and shades changing according to the point of view.

'Brownstone' Cocktail Lounge, image courtesy Kokaistudios

The ceiling is a composition of interlocked custom-designed metallic modules, vibrating with reflections. It is completely accessible for maintenance, and integrates installations, sprinklers, lights, and audio-video devices.

+ Project facts

Brownstone Bar
Interior Design: Kokaistudios | Andrea Destefanis, Pietro Peyron, Carmen Lee
Client: Blue Horizon Hospitality Group
Location: Shanghai, China
Area: 120 sqm
Completion: December, 2010
Photography: Charlie Xia & Kokaistudios

+ All images courtesy Kokaistudios