Go Far Yungui Bistro is located in the Ping An Finance Center in Futian District, Shenzhen. Yungui cuisine is highly sought after for its rich and unique ingredients and its authentic sour and spicy flavors. There is a saying in Southeast Guizhou: "Borrow from the sky, not from the land; the sky is flat, but the land is uneven." The cultural memory of food is closely intertwined with the natural local conditions. And the Ping An Finance Center where Go Far is located is the world's tallest office building, right in the heart of the striving culture that represents the "Shenzhen Spirit". This place is perhaps the closest to the "city" and the furthest from the "mountains and wilderness". How to bridge the gap from the city to the mountains and wilderness, and how to incorporate the "thousands of feet of mountains and waters in Guizhou and Yunnan" into a house constructed of concrete, is the starting point of our design concept.
A movie, "Kaili Blues", is our visual memory of Guizhou. The director Bi Gan was born in Guizhou and tells the daily stories of a small town in Guizhou in a dreamlike collage style. The scenery, space, and colors in the camera lens pull us back from the hustle and bustle of the city to the most natural state. Starting from "Kaili" and going all the way to "Dangmai", from a small southern town to a small southern village, the journey is filled with plants growing wildly along the rocks and residential houses. Accompanying the dampness is the vitality. Whether it's under the terraced fields or by the roadside, the fields and hills are like eternal open dining tables. When you encounter them by chance, you can experience this wild charm.
The project site is narrow and tall. The height advantage allows us to create a facade with sufficient signage effect. We have studied the roofs of the residential houses in Southeast Guizhou and also attempted to mimic the landscape of the terraced fields, finally presenting a metallic "roof". Instead of choosing tiles, we only selected the overall form. The stiff lines of the metal plates make the entire form look sharp and not cumbersome. The folded plates stack upwards, covering each other. The horizontal structural members are hidden in the gaps at the overlapping parts, so the rather large folded plate structure appears to be floating.
The internal floor height of the store is nearly 12 meters, but the width of the dining area is only 3.5 meters. Above the long and narrow space, there are large equipment boxes and numerous pipelines. Looking from the entrance of the restaurant, the winding space is like a valley full of jagged rocks. We have a subjective imagination of the mountains and forests in Yungui: in the shady part of the mountain stream, the air is so moist that it is visible, and the climbing plants spread and grow according to the terrain of the mountain, even meeting overhead. In Go Far, we use turquoise wooden boards to mimic the climbing plants to recreate our imagined scene. The wooden boards also overlap with each other, having a similar formal language to the metal plates on the facade. It extends all the way to the second floor, uniting the entire space.
Walking along the winding path on the first floor, natural light shines into the restaurant at the end. We have designed an openable canopy to provide shelter from the rain for the outdoor dining area. When the weather is good, opening the canopy is like pushing aside the plants overhead when walking in the mountains and forests, and the sunlight pours down directly, making the surroundings spacious. Looking up, the Ping An Center stands in front of you like a mountain peak, piercing through the clouds and mist. The outdoor dining area is a secluded wonderland in a valley without mountains.
The second floor is wrapped on one side by the metal plates that climb and fold up from the facade, and on the other side, it is shielded by the turquoise "vines". The wooden boards and the structure form a sharp triangular opening that resembles a cave. In ancient times, people often went in search of secluded and beautiful places, found a cave, and built a stone chamber for feasting. We also follow the example of the ancients, using metal and wood as the balustrades to partition off three stone chambers. The balustrades can slide as a whole along the track, serving as both walls and doors.
In terms of soft furnishings and props, we have also incorporated elements of Southeast Guizhou as much as possible. The dyed cloth with unique Guizhou regional characteristics, some of which is made into wine flags and some into seat cushions for wooden dining chairs. The customized screen dining table is also made by dyeing the wood veneer with the same color. The combination of indigo and firewood gives a simple and rustic feel of Yungui.
How to stand out and blaze a new trail in the highly competitive Yungui restaurant market? Modum Atelier believes that simply and directly borrowing intangible cultural heritage elements is not enough. Such an approach is too straightforward and uninteresting. Just naming a place as a mountain-themed one or bringing green plants indoors to create a sense of the mountains and wilderness is also very dull. We hope to depict an imagination of the mountains and wilderness while being in the city. Through translation and reinterpretation, we can achieve a spiritual connection, just like in "Kaili Blues".
