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AZ Awards 2020 Winner: Caffè Populaire - AZ Awards | AZ Awards
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How do you generate buzz for your latest lighting series during Milan Design Week, when countless product launches, cocktail events and eye-popping installations clamour for attention? That was the question facing Montreal’s Lambert & Fils, which in 2019 was presenting its Sainte collection, a line of coloured-glass pendant fixtures.

For an answer, the firm provided the one thing that everyone from overworked designers to over-walked journalists craves during the packed design extravaganza: a place to relax, grab a quick bite and maybe throw back a flute of prosecco. To that end, it commissioned the Italian firm DWA Design Studio to create Caffè Populaire, a unique experiential setting centred on the essentiality of food.

Taking over a former panettone factory, the space enticed with a simple message: Come for the food and conversation, stay for the design. And the design was magnificent. Suspended from the six-metre-high drop ceilings of the industrial space, the Sainte fixtures evoked ultramodern stained-glass windows.

“I love this project! It is such a treasure trove of textures and materials in a generous, un-precious space.”
Stephanie Davidson , AZ Awards juror

The genius of Caffè Populaire, which offered locally made nosh during the day before transforming into a private dinner venue at night, was to accommodate guests below the light clusters at stunning communal tables.

In particular, a massive, custom-crafted U-shaped table was topped with precast slabs of a composite material featuring compressed marble and granite dust, while a circular standing bar, lit from above by Lambert & Fils’ Hutchison pendants, was finished in a white and green terrazzo. (Both of the striking countertops were made by the Italian manufacturer Mariotti Fulget.) The bases of these pieces and their stools, finally, were painted a muted green.

With only a few stellar materials (albeit supersized and multiplied), DWA Design Studio fashioned a place where sensory-overloaded guests could both chill out and reaffirm their love of design, creating an anti-digital experience that elevated craft, tactility and the joy of just being there.

Location Milan, Italy  Firm  Lambert & Fils (Montreal, Canada) with DWA Design Studio (Milan, Italy) Team Samuel Lambert (Lambert & Fils) with Frederik de Wachter and Alberto Artesani (DWA Design Studio), Antoine Architectural Finishes, Mariotti Fulget and Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance

Winner: Temporary and Experiential Installations
AZ Awards 2020 Winner: Caffè Populaire

Lambert & Fils enlisted DWA Design Group to create a stunning setting to exhibit its light fixtures in Milan. The result: this unforgettable space that took the Architecture: Temporary and Experiential Installations category.

Explore more Award Winners

2013
Winner + People’s ChoiceTemporary and Experiential Installations
Location
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Firms
Plain Projects, with Urbanink and Pike Projects, all of Winnipeg
Team
Liz Wreford Taylor with Colin Grover, Marcelle Lussier, Evan Marnoch and Shawn Stankewich
2019
People’s ChoiceTemporary and Experiential Installations
Location
Mexico City, Mexico
Firms
Block Research Group at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and Zaha Hadid Architects Computation and Design Group (U.K.) with Architecture Extrapolated (U.K.)
2016
Award of MeritTemporary and Experiential Installations
Location
Atlanta, U.S.
Firms
Cadena + Asociados and Esrawe Studio, Mexico