Panda Nana Designs an Out-of-This-World Whiskey Bar in Zhangzhou, China

Sometimes you just need a drink. Other times, you need a complete intoxication of the senses—and for the latter occasion, Panda Nana designed the Control Bar in Zhangzhou. The 3,200-square-foot space is a vision of undulating grids and disorienting layouts. And that’s before you even reach the bar itself.

“The main inspiration is the retro space game,” says chief designer Lin Jiacheng. “Mechanics and technology are the keys to explore the unknown world.” A new printing technology was the key to the design, which allowed the designers to create 3-D lines on the stainless steel plates cladding the walls. This, and the curve of some of the plates themselves, create a space which feels free of gravity. Modular installations of light boxes further the fantasy. 

But the biggest flight of fancy is surely the bar, above which floats a sci-fi fantasia of incubating beings fed through tubes. It’s the ideal spot, in the strangest bar on earth, to stop and nurse a whiskey.