Perch Café. Park Slope. Brooklyn, NY

a place to perch...

The clients, a millworker + designer, acquired a space in their neighborhood to open a much needed venue which would accommodate mothers with children during the daytime hours while also being able to support the local bar/cafe crowd in the evening.
With tight budget constraints, but an aspiration to go beyond the typicalbistro or coffee shop ambiance, the evident strategy was to limit the “designed” elements to the client’s / millwork’s part of the build-out and to keep the GC’s work to the essentials.
Another dilemma - how to keep the high volume and its light, but create intimate spaces, a sense of diverse places within a large open volume?
we designed slotted milled canopies to hover above the seating areas and bar. light emerges from behind the canopies while also shining down from integrated pin-points and amber colored glass pendants. Always something warm near-by, something above to create intimacy and yet another expanse beyond.
the palette is decidedly “yummy”: honeys, amber, coffees and wine colors. materials are almost entirely sustainable or recycled, and one finish, a recycled nut shell board, is literally good enough to eat.
the front space, more tailored for sit-down eating, allows the neighborhood bloggers to perch along the perimeter of the space; in the back, movable lounge seating support the changing activities from kids play in the daytime to a relaxed cocktail lounge.