Ella Cafe
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Located just off the Bedford Street “L” stop in Williamsburg, Ella Café is a new cafeteria styles restaurant in one of the hippest new areas of New York City. Budget and timeframe were tremendously tight, greatly limiting the products and processes available.

The scheme is pinned by a long wood wall running the length of the space. From the ceiling, vertical boards fold at acute angles to form a bench. This bench wall draws one from street-front to the dining area in the back and finally, the garden area in the rear. Three sculptural canopies zigzag across the entire space, leading one from front door to the bar/ ordering counter, past the Kitchen in the middle of the space and finally to the more romantic seating area in the back. Beginning from a flat square panel, a cross incision at the center is pleated in opposite directions of the z-axis. The panels are put together in a large grid and suspended at two edges to form a catenary curve. Two ends are then brought together to distort the shape into a half cone. Three of these half cones are set along the diagonal axes described above.