Floating Canvases: Industrial Cool Meets Coffee Culture at Atelier tao+c’s Blue Bottle Coffee at West Bund.

Shanghai’s West Bund has gone from gritty industrial zone to cultural hotspot, and Atelier tao+c’s new Blue Bottle Coffee exemplifies this evolution. Nestled in the former Shanghai Cement Factory precinct with views across to a historical shipyard, this 180-square-metre space captures the area’s layered history while creating something entirely contemporary.

The design centres around two extraordinary “floating canvases”—sloped ceiling planes that hover above the café space, supported by slanted Douglas-fir timber columns. These architectural elements do far more than define zones; they create an almost theatrical sense of movement, as if caught mid-flutter by river breezes. The four corners of each canvas sit at varying heights, with the riverside edges lifted to frame spectacular views of the Huangpu River and the working shipyard beyond.

What makes this project particularly clever is how these seemingly sculptural elements integrate all the café’s mechanical requirements. Air conditioning, lighting, and electrical systems are embedded within the sloping roof structure, with strategic openings in the timber frames serving as both air returns and light wells. It’s this kind of functional poetry that elevates the space beyond mere aesthetics.

A Spatial Folly: Ziinlife Beijing Showroom by Atelier Tao+c.

Two scaffold-like structures, interlocked and rotated inside the existing warehouse, allow for homogenous planning and display of furniture, eliminating much of the collection hierarchy. Though awkward on first impression...

The material palette speaks directly to the site’s industrial heritage. Prefabricated concrete blocks—a deliberate nod to the Shanghai Cement Factory that operated here from 1920 to 2009—form the coffee bar and seating bases. These utilitarian elements are softened with pinewood surfaces, creating a dialogue between raw industrial materials and natural warmth.

A multi-functional Douglas-fir laminated timber wall serves as both room divider and display system, housing everything from storage to menu boards while separating the kitchen from the café area. The warm timber tones create intimacy within the larger volume, while maintaining visual connections throughout the space.

Perhaps most successfully, the design extends this material language outdoors, where simple prefabricated concrete stools face the active shipyard. Here, visitors can experience their coffee ritual against the backdrop of working barges and cranes—a reminder of the site’s ongoing connection to Shanghai’s industrial life.

Atelier tao+c has created a space that honours its context without being literal about it. The floating canvases and careful material choices create a café that feels both grounded in place and timelessly contemporary—exactly what you’d hope for from a global coffee brand’s arrival in one of Shanghai’s most dynamic districts.

Harmony of Nature and Design: Naïve Bookstore in Northern China by Atelier tao+c.

A luminous retreat in Northern China's Aranya Chongli featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, translucent fibreglass bookshelves, and custom-designed furniture, this bookstore and café redefines the traditional reading space.

[Images courtesy of Atelier tao+c. Photography by Wen Studio.]