Don’t call it a cafeteria.

Our history as a company is deeply rooted in the hospitality field: bars, clubs, hotels and restaurants. When we were approached by HLW to work on an office project in 2013, we were excited and a bit surprised. Though our designers have collective workplace experience, our studio didn’t.

The project was a food and beverage destination, and the task was to make this space feel like a quintessential New York restaurant. Okay, so now we are less surprised. This is our jam.

“But it’s a cafeteria. Right?”

“No. Its not a cafeteria and erase that word from your vocabulary”.

This tech company invests serious time and capital in their teams and environment, and if their gorgeous work spaces aren’t proof enough, their F&B destinations sure are. Each has a theme, a carefully curated food offering, and thoughtful attention to detail and user experience.

Chelsea Market is a cool spot. It was once the Nabisco Factory complex but since the 90s has functioned as a retail concourse with offices above. It’s industrial, layered and quirky. Perfect for the client. Our project, at the top floor of the building, has soaring 30-foot ceilings, a ton of natural light, exposed brick and truss work. Our challenge was to engage this multilevel space with lighting and make it feel inviting, and intimate.

Entering the café, the monumental height of the space is revealed and a stair to the mezzanine level hugs a two-story glass block wall. It was important to us to activate the feature wall in an interesting way, that is teachable and speaks to the client’s spirit. One of our designers, Jeffrey Shepherd, suggested a binary clock. Nerdy, but perfect. We designed an exposed framework behind the glass block to house programmable nodes of RGB LED and Jeffrey wrote a custom binary clock program. There is a subtle color shift, and occasionally, like any clock, it has to be tuned.

To add dimension and scale to the tall ceilings, we introduced a grouping of large half domed decorative pendants. We varied height and size of the pendants in a playful configuration to help welcome users in the space. It was imperative for the arrangement to be interesting from below and above. We studied the placement in detail in Revit before finalizing the design.

Below the mezzanine we placed a grid of small globes, again playing with scale. Food service counters and casework have integral lighting in a cooler color temperature to highlight the food.

To make the space feel more bespoke we introduced table lamps throughout . These fixtures help to provide intimacy and a low level glow.

The mezzanine level feels more like a library lounge. Picture lights highlight custom artwork and multiple layers of indirect light, decorative lamps and portable lamps converge. We felt the spaces should feel like a patchwork of light, so that anyone could find their right place, seat, and type of lighting.

Where it’s possible to look down into the space, we made sure architectural and decorative fixtures were shielded to prevent glare . This space is about looking down as much as it is about looking up.

As much as possible we varied the scale of fixtures to add whimsy, but also to provide balance and to ground your view throughout the space.

Don’t forget about the bathrooms. We added decorative globes throughout to give ambient glow and articulated sconces above the mirrors for our direct light. It was a challenge we imposed on ourselves to use as few downlights or visible architectural lights as possible to respect the historic nature of Chelsea Market and really give that authentic “always been there” NYC restaurant vibe.