The Aranya Jin-Sheng-Long Restaurant / Studio NOR

The many wallsIn early 2020, we were invited by Aranya Resort to design a branch restaurant of the esteemed Beijing restaurant brand Jin-Sheng-Long, which is known for serving Hot Pot and Quick-Boiled Tripe (a traditional Beijing street cuisine) since the 1890s.The site, located at the street level of a residential building, occupies the footprints of three originally proposed retail stores. As a result, there are at least 21 structural shear walls, either protruding out from the perimeter walls or standing independently, exist in this less-than-300㎡ site. This segregated spatial condition brought us a huge design challenge, for the client had clearly required an open-dining space without any private rooms, plus a bar area with an 8-meter-long table. Therefore, finding a solution to deal with the many shear walls became the key of our design process.