Bronze Mesh Creates Wavelike Ceiling For German Flagship Coffee Shop
Tradition meets modernity at the flagship store of one of Germany’s oldest coffee roasting companies: Heimbs Café in the Schloss-Arkaden shopping center in Braunschweig, Germany.
Heimbs processes more than 2,500 tons of the popular beans every year. The flagship store in the company’s home city of Braunschweig honors the long tradition of coffee, while reflecting its high quality standards. Despang Architekten of Hanover decided to create visual “flavor” through dynamic material combinations. Design elements such as earthy colors, illuminated coffee beans enclosed in glass and an earthy black ash parquet floor convey the organic culture of the countries that export the company’s coffee beans. These warm tones are continued through an undulating bronze-colored metal mesh ceiling by GKD Metal Fabrics.
GKD developed this custom ceiling design out of brass Lamelle mesh specifically for this installation. The wavy mesh spans the ceiling and wall before finally terminating in a curved bench for seating. The form of the structure reflects the aroma symbol in the roasting company’s logo, affixed to the café wall. For the ceiling cladding, a total of 26 mesh panels ranging 3-12.7 feet in length and 4.6- 12.4 feet in width were assembled to form a continuous structure. The panels were then enhanced with targeted lighting, utilizing the mesh’s reflective properties to create a warm atmosphere and recall the sunny skies of the coffee’s homelands.
While a mesh ceiling can hide unsightly duct work and electrical components, it also provides safety benefits in addition to aesthetics. Water from sprinklers installed above the ceiling panel won’t be inhibited in case of fire as water can pass directly through the transparent metal mesh.
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