Qubik bar Gorizia

location: Corso Verdi, 53 - Gorizia, Italy

program: bar

dates: project 2008, execution: 2009

data: total built area 25 m2

architect: waltritsch a+u, Arch. Dimitri Waltritsch Trieste, Italy
electrical: Lorenzo Schirra

team: Dimitri Waltritsch

main contractor: SZ arredamenti, Cervignano

photography: Marco Covi, Trieste

Qubik bar is the smallest part (but socially very important) of the Slovenian cultural and educational KBcenter in Gorizia. Moreover the small cafe is the first concept bar of the new brand Qubik cafe from Trieste.
All over the world, cafes are today public spaces for rituals that belong to the urban world. Like having a cup of coffee or meet some friends or dedicating time to the private sphere. Places which stimulates individual curiosity and stages for urban human behavior.
Laid out within only 25m2 the bar has two entrances: from the city main road, Corso Verdi, and from the courtyard internal to the cultural center, so it almost becomes a passage where passer by and internal user can occasionally meet. The design is therefore based on the idea of ‘dilating’ the limited space.
A long Corian counter becomes an extension that breaks through the physical boundaries of the room: a cube-shaped illuminated showcase on the street side, a suspended smoking corner into the courtyard. The illuminated ‘sugar cube’ projecting onto the street also serves as a marker: this bar has no written sign, as the nature of the business is conveyed through the direct exposition of the product.
Temperated glass, silk screened in a solid colour clads the two windowless walls to continue the illusion of extension and to accentuate its depth.

Images and text © D. Waltritsch. Use only by permission.

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