The flagship store for speciality roaster First Love is a showcase for its coffee beans as well as a stand-up coffee bar offering takeaway breakfast, lunch and pastries. The brand’s focus on provenance and sustainability is exemplified through natural materials such as cork, copper, marble, terracotta and rose gum. The colours of the materials reflect the spectrum of reds and greens in raw coffee beans.

Description

Architecture by Fiona Drago

Photography by Rebecca Newman

Published with Bowerbird

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Questions and Answers

Who are the clients and what’s interesting about them?

The flagship store for specialty roaster First Love is a showcase for its coffee beans and a stand-up coffee bar offering takeaway breakfast, lunch and pastries. The brand’s focus on provenance and sustainability is exemplified through natural materials such as cork, copper, marble, terracotta and rose gum.

What are the sustainability features?

The material palette exemplifies the coffee brand’s focus on provenance and sustainability by using natural materials that are minimally processed and recyclable. The colours of the materials reflect the spectrum of reds and greens in raw coffee beans.

What were the key challenges?

The space is very compact. It is 52 square metres and 3.4 metres wide, narrowing to 2.6m wide at some points. It has full-height glazing on three of its four walls and has high visibility on one of the Melbourne’s busiest streets. 

Key products used:

Cabinets are clad in brushed copper; countertops are made from Verde Alpi green marble. Green terrazzo, which contains Verde Alpi marble chips, sweeps across the floor and up the main wall. It unifies the compact space and provides a coherent backdrop for the retail display of the coffee beans in wall alcoves that are lined in peach-coloured terrazzo with terracotta chips. 
A standing bar crafted from rose gum extends along the north-facing windows and is a spot where customers can sip their coffee and look out to a pocket park. The various shades of green in the space blend with the colours of the park. 

The lighting is made locally in Melbourne; the terracotta pendants are from Anchor Ceramics and the copper spotlights are from Artefact Industries. 

The three-dimensional cork ceiling provides acoustic comfort and blends with the colour and texture of the precast concrete columns. 

Ceiling: Havwoods Vertical cork tiles 
Floor: Signorino Mornington terrazzo tile 
Benchtop: Glux Verde Alpi marble 
Joinery: Austral Wright brushed copper 
Bartop: Shiver Me Timbers rose gum 
Lighting: Anchor Ceramics Earth pendant, Artefact Industries T-Mini copper spotlight

What were the solutions?

There are no partition walls or full-height cabinets in the space in order to keep it as open as possible. This strategy also provides the opportunity to celebrate all the operations of a cafe, including the back-of-house area.