Founded in 2016 by husband-and-wife team Nikola Susaeta and Isabel Senta, using a simple food truck, Abasotas Food Studio – quirkily stylised as aaA® – has since become the go-to address for discerning sweet tooths in Basque Country. The company is based in the coastal town of Barrika and specialises in artisanal cookies, pastries, cakes, and even an assorted range of lifestyle items, has recently taken its operations to a new level by opening up shop. But not as you’d expect from a business like this. Keeping things playful, an aaA® ATM has recently opened in downtown Bilbao. Situated on the ground floor of an eight-storey residential building erected in the 1950s, the retail space measures a mere 7 sqm. (75 sq.ft.), and features an interior design by Basque creative studio Pensando en blanco. As its name already implies, the design of aaA® ATM takes ample cues from, indeed, an actual ATM.
It’s also equally inspired by the nifty vendor machines found abundantly across Japan, but for aaA®, ATM actually stands for At the moment, a creed which forms the very base for a retail concept which instantly delivers to its customers. Although tiny, aaA® ATM comprises three main spaces that complement each other—a display, a direct sales window, and a vending machine. These three modules offer shoppers an interaction with a non-linear shop, in an open experience composed of multiple formats. On the right, a steel module conceals a sales machine with a built-in big tech component and a digital screen, in addition to an opening from where the product of choice van be retrieved. At the back of aaA® ATM, sits a display area where cookies, brownies and the brand’s other goods are showcased in a stainless steel square grid. Unsurprisingly, aaA® ATM constantly communicates with the main bakery, sending sales data, and in response, continuously receiving a supply of new, freshly baked goods. © superfuture
aaA® ATM
Poza Lizentziatuaren Kalea 6
48008 Bilbao
Daily 8am-10pm
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.
