Over Bakery

This bakery within a narrow street seeks to reflect the surrounding ambience and fit into the living environment where time ‘gently’ flows. Situated on the ground floor of a three-storey office building, at the narrowest corner of Lixi Road, the south façade alongside the street has a slightly concave elevation.

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The façade features a slight twist with a shifted angle, creating an intermediate threshold to the road. This allows the sidewalk to be expanded into the building, optimising the interaction between the storefront and the street’s traffic.

The door openings on the elevation have been transformed into window seats, while the window opening has been renovated to serve as the doorway, providing a shelter for runners or passers-by who walk their dogs. The architects describe this as “a conscious move to re-edit the past by superimposing the recent present”.

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PROJECT DATA

Site Location
Shanghai, China

Completion Date
December 2022

Floor Area
80 square metres

Architecture Firm
Atelier tao+c

Design Team
Tao Liu; Chunyan Cai; Yan Wang; Yunuo Zheng (intern)

Construction Firm
Tian Ci Renovation

Photos
Wen Studio

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Liu Tao & Cai Chunyan

Liu Tao and Cai Chunyan co-founded Atelier tao+c in Shanghai in 2016. Cai received a master’s degree in architecture from the Berlage Institute in Netherlands, and Liu graduated from Shandong art college. They have handled projects in architecture, interior design and product design, being especially active in the architecture of adaptive reuse. Through various projects in ageing neighbourhoods, the firm examined the in-between nature of trend cycles, showing us how the aesthetics of transience are sometimes necessary to support certain functions/typologies or ‘futureproof’ a space by way of flexibility. Their projects have won various awards, most recently in A&D Awards […]

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