Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Waves Bar

This is a project by Planet 3 Studios and it is located at Thana, India. There are seven images for Waves Bar.

: © Mrigank Sharma (India Sutra)

Project images

Designer's statement

Thematically, the design of this bar draws from the many moods of water. Placid, stirred or agitated, water offers myriad existences to evoke and suggest. More abstractly, water expresses seamlessness, continuity and ability to find balance. We make positive associations of water with calm repose and the nourishment of body and soul.

The ceiling with its undulating waves of varying pitch evokes the surface of sea in mild agitation. The view is from below and the tiled pattern abstracts it only to a point that does not compromise the essence. Cast and handcrafted in plaster, three distinct modules repeat geometrically to blanket the entire ceiling and descend on one wall forming a backdrop for passageway leading in from the entrance. Painted white, it scatters light from a recessed cove along its periphery.

The two sides of the space that open to the outside have a carefully articulated skin layered in glass and thermoformed Plexiglas panels. While the outer glass skin is frosted, it reveals the outside through transparent strips that follow the form of panels inside. Plexiglas panels anchored to ceiling and floor twist and turn offering a subtle suggestion of a water cascade frozen in time. Sandwiched between glass and the panels is a strip of programmable colour changing LED lights. The light wash on the outside glass accentuates the fluid form of the panels.

The bar counter is a seamless construct clad in solid-surface acrylic. In the front, a water trough is revealed through round punctures in the apron. Air bubbles continually form and dissipate in this trough and lighting effects lend sparkle to the fizz. The backdrop behind the bar is formed of ribbon like panels that flow along the wall shaping bases for display of liquor bottles. LED lights help express the smoothness of the lines.

Fluid lines find their way below the central seating area in form of under lighting below a frosted glass floor. The tables in this section have sandwich glass tops with lower layer of glass cracked and frosted in patterns resembling the melting ice on water. Even the chairs in this space have certain fluidity in form and texture.Along the periphery, comfortable couches clad in steel grey leather keep the palette cool. The tables here have hand painted graphic patterns echoing ripples on water surface.

As a bar in a larger hotel, this property manages to become a destination with a distinct, hip, cool contemporary character.

Location: Thana, India
Designers: Planet 3 Studios Architecture
Delivery: Design Consultancy
Design Team: Kalhan Mattoo, Santha Gour Mattoo, Hina Chudasama, Prashanta Kr. Ghosh, Gauri Argade
Area: 1500 sf
Construction cost: Rs. 1294/sf
Construction: Aug 2008 to Oct 2008
Photographer: Mrigank Sharma (India Sutra)