Chinese DIY bakery concept Yakafu has launched in Anji with a striking design by Shanghai-based studio KCA. The design, which recently featured on DesignBoom for its bold, brightly colored interior, serves as a backdrop in the flagship store that invites customers to learn how to make bread and bakery items. “KCA has clad the exterior of the Yakafu DIY bakery in a facade of terrazzo and back-lit blue, perforated metal surfaces, that make it to stand out from its surroundings,” reve
roundings,” reveals the DesignBoom report. The terrazzo blocks are the centrepiece of the store’s design, arranged as if scattered throughout the store and haphazardly piled into a staircase.
“The Chinese have an appetite for anything that is different,” said KCA founder Kostas Chatzigiannis in an interview with Frame magazine, “and for spaces, shapes, colours and structures that are often maximal and very expressive, rather than subtle and minimal … Chinese contemporary culture, very much linked with the ephemeral snapshot of someone’s daily life posted on WeChat and Weibo, is basically demanding such surrealist spaces.
“As the Chinese travel more and more, and they become familiar with Western cities and their architecture, they no longer want to copy and import those European styles to China. Instead, they want to create anew.”
