The leading authority for the Architecture & Design community
January 10, 2018
Text: Jesse Dorris
Starbucks Opens World’s Largest Location in Shanghai
China has the world’s largest population—and, with the opening of the Starbucks Reserve Roastery Shanghai, the world’s largest Starbucks. Its 30,000 square feet include three coffee bars and Asia’s first Princi bakery and café, along with China’s first Starbucks Teavana Bar.
Custom lounge chairs are walnut with copper arms wrapped in hand-stitched leather. Photography courtesy of Starbucks.
“The bar’s color was inspired by the lima green of clay teapots,” says Liz Muller, senior vice president of creative global design for Starbucks, “and the pattern by their texture. This is the first-ever 3-D printed bar made out of recycled plastic. There’s only one robot in the world that can print this.”
An 88-foot coffee bar, one of three, is Starbucks’ longest in the world. Photography of Starbucks,
Furniture throughout was designed in collaboration with the Danish OEO Studio, and manufactured by local craftsmen. And the team surely needed a healthy jolt of caffeine to manufacture and engineer, in four short months, the 10,500 hexagonal tiles used as a ceiling canopy that resemble the lock of an espresso machine’s portafilter.
Custom stools offer seating beneath copper “symphony” pipes, names for the sounds coffee beans make as they travel from casks to coffee bars and packing lines. Photography courtesy of Starbucks.The two-story, 40-ton copper cask, covered with 1,000 hand-carved traditional Chinese copper panels that tell the story of Starbucks in Chinese characters, connects to the coffee bars via pneumatic pipes. Photography courtesy of Starbucks.The Teavana bar is made from 3-D printed recycled plastic materials, in a light jade colorway inspired by ancient green clay teapots. Photography courtesy of Starbucks.The ceiling canopy comprises 10,500 hexagonal tiles of handcrafted aluminum sheeting with wood veneer. Photography courtesy of Starbucks.Illustrated coffee cards form a wall display near the entrance. Photography courtesy of Starbucks.
