Samuella Yoo

Banyan Tree Café is located on 75-5851 Kuakini Hwy in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The cafe is based in the University of Nation campus and serves fresh coffee every day to students, staff and locals. The client wanted to renovate the old café to create a new open plan and well-functioning café by minimising the waste of space.

 

The Banyan Tree Café is single storey building with two magnificent banyan trees in front of the building, providing shade to overcome hot Hawaii weather. The existing café was the close plan, and they were lots of waste of space had not been planned effectively, and there were many areas which where the space was being underutilised. The café was positioned at the corner of the building, disconnected from any other internal area of building. (Only staff can access another side through the internal door). This makes the customer experience inconvenient and difficult for them to use any other facility including seating area, bathroom, etc.

 

The client wanted to expand the café space with open plan, well-functioning connections within the space and minimise the waste of space. Also, the client planned to extend the business by adding more menu items, hiring more staff, and extending the opening hours. To enable this, the client required larger counter space with separated working zone such as ordering, food, hot/cold drinks and pick up area. The client requires this project to be completed within a small budget and use the local suppliers.

 

The overall design idea was based on maximising the functionality of space. To solve the biggest problem (waste of space and circulation issues), our team decided to reverse the café counter space toward the internal building and tear down the existing walls. By reversing the café position, it secures ample space for the café employees and creates effective circulation for customers. The dark timber clearly defines the overall space, and the light timber with white glass tiles generates a fluorescent aspect into space. The feature pendant light placed at the corner of the bulkhead ceiling provides a touch of elegance.