KuKu is primarily created as a vinyl music bar with DJs and a strong emphasis on music. Another important component is an interesting choice of beer, cocktails, wine, and all other types of alcoholic beverages with an option of light snacks. This is a place for drinking, dancing and listening to music.

The bar owners love the 70s era, 80s disco, and all things vintage. As a reference for the mood and atmosphere the owners have chosen the movie “Subway” by Luc Besson, which became the starting point for the entire space concept. The film uses “worn” faded colors which we tried to incorporate into the project. We were inspired by how the frames are arranged and by people in the movie. We were trying to imagine and incorporate them in our space while making it for them.

We’ve taken the idea of blinds from “Subway”, which at the time of the film became quite fashionable. We took the classic blue denim color and used it in plaster and its worn texture. We have red lamps, tiles, glass blocks – all of these are signs of that time too. At the same time we did not want to make a pure stylization of the 70s but rather use specific iconic elements of that time.

The subway is also obviously an underground space, so we created a whole wall covered in tiles that could be used in a metro station, and a niche to further connect the space with the subway concept.

The space of the bar was pretty small with only 50 square meters, quite narrow and not very cozy. The task was to accommodate a bar with a seating zone, a kitchen, a DJ stand with a space for dancing and two bathrooms as well.

Due to the configuration of the space it was absolutely impossible to fit all the necessary zones we needed on the one single level. That is why the owners and ourselves came up with the idea of building a second mezzanine floor and placing a DJ stand there as well as an informal seating on the podium behind it.

When you enter the bar you get into the seating area. Right by the big wall-length window we have a sofa with a standing lamp, an armchair, and a vintage rug. Any person passing by on the street could see a beautiful lounge area with a very cozy low seating resembling someone’s living room in the 70s rather than a cafe.

Next is our bar area which needed to accommodate too many guests for this narrow space, so we made it semi-circular and long. The semicircle allowed us to soften the corners in the original narrow rectangular and elongated space.

Behind the bar is a kitchen with what looks like floating glass blocks. There is a gap between the upper and lower glass blocks so that people going to the restroom can see what’s happening in the kitchen.

The stairs near the kitchen lead to the second mezzanine floor, which we designed and made ourselves. It also seems to float despite that inside there is a structure, wall extension, etc., but one sees only the floating part of the stairs.
The space gained horizontal division and ceiling slabs became visible with the appearance of the second floor.

On the end part of the ceiling slabs we made a mirror across the entire width of the space. This was done to prevent people from seeing the thickness of the ceiling slabs and the thickness of the second floor. We wanted to disrupt the proportion of heights on the first and second floors.

In the bathrooms instead of a ceiling we placed metal grilles that are usually being used in street drainage systems and in subways. This is again a reference to “Subway” and was both an aesthetic conceptual and practical solution since we had a lot of utilities above our ceiling that needed access.

The roof of the kitchen with glass blocks extends to the second floor and serves as a daybed. These glass blocks provide lighting on the second floor since there is no light on the ceiling. Now there is backlight on both sides in the ribs of the concrete slab structure, creating illumination for this podium-daybed.

In addition to breaking up the second floor, the mirror reflects a large industrial fan that we have placed on the ceiling adding dynamics to space. People on the street can see the dynamics of people drinking, talking and dancing inside the bar reflected in the mirror.