Customer : Bar Academy
Architectural design/interior design/Supervision: Chrisoula Fotsitzi
Graphic identity: Soul Creative Agency Project
Location: Venizelou 74, Thessaloniki
Built area: 170 m2
Design-Construction Year: 2020
Photo credits: CAN studio
Bar Academy is a barista and bartending professional training school, with facilities in Athens and Thessaloniki. In 2020, the firm decided to move the facilities of Thessaloniki to a new, larger space on the first floor of a building at 74 Venizelou Street.
The heterogeneous aesthetics of the older space in terms of colors, furniture, materials, etc. could not represent the corporate identity. The main goal of the architecture study was not only to facilitate the existing equipment for the seminars, but also to refresh the aesthetic identity of the academy.
We proposed simple, budget friendly solutions, potentially applicable to new spaces that the academy will be asked to create in the future.
The U-shaped area includes a reception and three rooms for conducting seminars: barista, bartending and zero waste training. The last two are placed in the front facade of the building, towards Venizelou Street, with a folding dividing structure between them, so that them combined they can host an event or seminar of larger capacity. In addition, a special element is used in the middle of the building facade and a “atrium” space is created for the students break.
The overall image follows an industrial or workshop aesthetics. The materials used were dark metal with raw joints, cement mortar, unpainted marine veneer and stainless steel elements. The colors are white, gray and black and in details green, following the graphic brand identity. All the fixed inox benches are placed in the perimeter of the floor plan, while the mobile furniture was designed with flexibility in mind: tilting tables in the barista training, tables of a special trapezoid shape with wheels and a construction of floating power supplies (in the zero waste room).
