The fancy lifestyle perks of China‘s affluent first-tier cities have started spilling over into provincial cities and towns, and the recent opening of the Equator Peak Coffee café proves just that. Situated in Yiwu, a town in the Zhejiang province, and a one-and-a-half-hour car drive south of its capital Hangzhou, the new establishment has shaken up the local hospitality scene, serving freshly made coffee concoctions in an understated setting that wouldn’t look out of place in downtown Shanghai or Chengdu‘s Hi-Tech Zone. The Equator Peak Coffee café occupies 200 sqm. (2,153 sq.ft.) spread across three levels on the ground floor of a multi-storey modern building near Wanda Plaza, a large mixed-use complex with a shopping centre, hotel and a slew of entertainment and dining establishments which has become the city’s ultimate lifestyle hub.
The café’s interior design, created by WJ Studio, an acclaimed architecture practice based in both Hangzhou and Shanghai, is a new format and a welcome addition to the Choujiang neighbourhood’s many high-end establishments. Contrary to all other local coffee parlours, Equator Peak Coffee brings a new format to the city as it’s designed as a modern lifestyle space where to stay for an extended period of time to either meet friends and mingle, or just sit back and relax or get some work done on your own. To visually emphasise the austere aesthetic, the design sees two shades only—red and white, captured by red bricks and stone, used for putting up walls or as flooring, and white paint and stucco which has been applied to all other surfaces.
Additionally, large mirrors have been installed that not only make the premises appear optically larger, but also reflect the outdoor urban scenery, and in fact, blur the boundaries between the outside. After crossing a sizeable and sunny outside terrace, visitors find themselves in a light-filled space thanks to large floor-to-ceiling windows. The ground floor sees an elongated service counter right next to the entrance – mind you, one side of the service counter looks out looks out on the outdoor terrace, serving visitors seated there – and instantly reveals its layout which aims to incite interaction among guests. A staircase leads to an elevated level with bar seating and continues to the mezzanine level with additional seating arrangements with a variety of carefully sourced furnishings.
Equator Peak Coffee
Building 1, Choujiang Lu, Shop 1 (Choujiang)
321000 Yiwu
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
