WORK IN PROGRESS

Submission
Coffee x People : Reimagining the café as a lived-through, human-centric spatial ecosystem (As Cafe Amazon Concept Store in Phnom Penh)

College of Design, Rangsit University

Waris Sinsuebpol

Abstract :

This project explores Coffee x People, a conceptual interior architecture project reimagining the café as a permeable, participatory spatial experience. Rather than treating coffee as a static commodity or the café as a backdrop, the design positions architecture as an invisible medium—a threshold for human flow, encounter, and lifestyle. Anchored in the notion of “THROUGH”, the project employs a multi-layered strategy of spatial transparency—visual, physical, and atmospheric—to dissolve conventional boundaries between interior and exterior, public and private, nature and structure. Through mass reduction, split-level transitions, and site-responsive elements such as tree integration and passive ventilation, Coffee x People proposes an architecture that users can see through, walk through, and live through. Drawing from phenomenology, human-centric design theory, and bioclimatic principles, the paper situates this work as both a spatial prototype and a philosophical inquiry into architecture as lived interface.

Objectives :

1. Rethinking the Everyday Café

Café architecture often replicates typological norms: static seating, singular commercial intent, and a spatial logic oriented around consumption. Yet in contemporary urban life, cafés are more than transactional spaces—they serve as third places, informal offices, social hubs, and even contemplative zones. In this shifting landscape, how might spatial design evolve to reflect the complexity of human engagement with such spaces?

Coffee x People, a speculative concept for Café Amazon, addresses this question by proposing a design framework where architecture becomes a medium for flow, interaction, and presence. The project reframes the café not as an enclosed program but as an evolving interface between people, environment, and daily rituals. Its conceptual core—“THROUGH”—guides both the spatial strategy and philosophical intent of the design.

2. Theoretical analysis – Beyond Form: Architecture as Permeable Medium

The term “THROUGH” encapsulates a range of spatial conditions: see-through, go-through, walk-through, and even fly-through. Each expresses a mode of permeability—a movement, a gaze, a breeze, a transition. Rather than prioritizing built form, the design orchestrates a field of thresholds and in-between spaces. It is an architecture that seeks not to contain but to connect.

This paper positions Coffee x People within a broader discourse of human-centric and phenomenological design. It explores how spatial openness, environmental responsiveness, and the softening of boundaries can shape meaningful user experience. Ultimately, the project suggests a shift from architecture as object to architecture as event—lived, temporal, and open to encounter.

Conceptual Framework :

Theoretical Framing: Architecture of the In-Between
1. Architecture as Sensory Experience
The architectural approach in Coffee x People is grounded in phenomenological design thinking, where the focus shifts from visual aesthetics to multisensory experience. Juhani Pallasmaa’s The Eyes of the Skin (2005) argues that architecture should engage the entire body, not just the eye—emphasizing tactile, olfactory, and auditory experience. In this project, spatial transitions such as sunken seats, gentle ramps, and courtyards invite the user to move, pause, and dwell in ways that are not prescribed but intuitive—allowing space to be felt as much as it is seen.
The concept of “throughness”—whether walking through open thresholds or sensing wind pass through masses—aligns with Pallasmaa’s idea of architecture as background to life, not as a visual spectacle. This resonates with Peter Zumthor’s notion of “atmosphere” (2006), where architectural quality lies in intangible emotional resonance. The careful integration of wind, light, greenery, and public flow generates what might be described as emotive permeability—an architecture that reveals itself through lived experience rather than imposed form.
2. Thresholds, Liminality, and the “In-Between”
The recurring spatial device in Coffee x People is the in-between space—zones that blur the boundary between interior and exterior, architecture and nature, public and private. These spatial moments draw from Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space (1994), a liminal realm where hybridity emerges, allowing new meanings, behaviors, and communities to form.
In architectural terms, this is reflected in:
• The lifted mass allows the environment to pass underneath.
• The ramp that operates as both circulation and seating.
• The plaza that transforms a setback into a communal interface.
Such strategies avoid rigid zoning and instead promote fluid occupation, where users negotiate their own spatial relationship dynamically. This affirms architect Kisho Kurokawa’s Metabolist idea of the city as an evolving organism and echoes Toyo Ito’s belief in “blurring architecture” to adapt to human behavior and environmental forces.
3. Human-Centric Design and Environmental Continuity
Central to Coffee x People is a human-centric ethos, where the architecture adapts to user behavior, comfort, and psychological wellbeing. This extends to:
• Diverse seating typologies (solo, group, sunken, slope).
• Visual and physical porosity for openness and security.
• Natural ventilation and daylight to create biophilic continuity.
These choices are underpinned by emerging research in environmental psychology and neuroscience in architecture, which highlight how spatial openness, access to nature, and sensory stimulation contribute to reduced stress and increased social engagement (Sternberg, 2009; Kellert et al., 2008).
Moreover, integrating existing trees into the spatial layout reflects a bioclimatic sensibility, treating architecture not as separate from but symbiotic with its ecosystem. The strategic setback and massing respond to sunlight, wind, and approach patterns, ensuring not only thermal comfort but contextual harmony.

Process / Methodology :

Design Methodology: Translating Concept into Form
1. From Idea to Intervention: “THROUGH” as Spatial Generator
The conceptual anchor of Coffee x People—the word “THROUGH”—was not treated as a metaphor but as an operative spatial generator. The design explores multiple interpretations:
• See through: visual porosity and transparency.
• Go through: open movement across thresholds.
• Walk through: circulatory choreography integrated with user behavior.
• Fly through: spatial lightness and unobstructed environmental flow.
This multiplicity was translated into physical strategy through an iterative design process that layered concept, context, and user patterns. The diagrams show a progressive shift from conventional enclosures to a porous spatial system, one that prioritizes environmental continuity and human flow over rigid boundaries.
2. Site-Responsive Massing and Boundary Reconsideration
The site strategy began with an assessment of environmental constraints and public interface potential. The original building line was intentionally set back to open up a plaza, transforming underutilized frontage into a shared, civic-scale entry. This move redefined the café not as a stand-alone unit, but as a continuation of public space.
Mass orientation and form were driven by:
• Solar exposure: shifting and splitting volumes to create passive shading.
• Ventilation pathways: carving out openings and courts to channel prevailing winds.
• Vegetation preservation: integrating existing trees as shading and spatial anchor points
This led to an organization of masses that breathe, both in climatic and social terms. The interplay of solids and voids invites movement through, rather than movement into.
3. Multi-Layered Circulation and Split-Level Activation
Rejecting flat programming, the design utilizes split-level transitions and sloped topography—not just to differentiate space, but to choreograph bodily experience. A key example is the sloped seating ramp: part amphitheater, part circulation path, and part social space. The ramp to the second floor is not an accessory but a participatory zone, accommodating various tempos of use: lingering, passing, pausing.
This layering encourages unplanned engagement, where users discover their own trajectories and uses. In this way, Coffee x People acts less like a predetermined interior and more like a spatial ecosystem in which users activate form through use.
4. Partition as Philosophy: From Separation to Transition
In traditional cafés, partitions are often used to contain functions and separate zones. This design flips that logic—partition becomes a medium of transition rather than division. Spatial boundaries are blurred:
• Half-lifted masses define zones without isolating them.
• Gradients replace thresholds—ramps, slopes, and sunken seating produce transitions in tone and experience rather than abrupt shifts.
• The core program is elevated, not to dominate, but to create continuity between ground and air, public and private.
Architecture here does not frame people; it hosts them, providing a light infrastructure that remains in the background while enabling a multitude of interactions.

Techniques and Materials :

Spatial Strategy and Implementation
The spatial design of Coffee x People is guided by the principle of permeability, encouraging the flow of people, light, air, and time across and through the architecture. The building mass is intentionally pulled back from the street to form a transitional public forecourt, softening the boundary between urban space and architecture. This gesture not only enhances approachability but also improves environmental comfort through integration with natural elements.
Internally, the project avoids rigid enclosures. Masses are arranged to facilitate cross-ventilation and maintain open visual connections, creating a spatial experience that feels intuitive and non-linear. Movement is choreographed rather than directed, aligning with the project’s core idea of “living through” space.
Vertical transitions are used to deepen spatial interaction. Split levels and topographic shifts generate layered experiences, where ramps and platforms function both as circulation and social seating. Each floor supports diverse modes of use—from public gathering and passive occupation on the ground level to more private, domestic-like zones above. These spaces are designed not for a singular function but for flexible, user-defined inhabitation.
A key feature is the diversity of spatial typologies: sunken lounges, stepped seating, and soft, domestic clusters that support both solitude and sociability. This variety reflects a human-centric ethos, giving users the freedom to choose how and where they engage with space.

Result / Conclusion :

Discussion: Rethinking the Café as Social Interface
1. Architecture as Invisible Infrastructure
Coffee x People departs from conventional café design by foregrounding human behavior and environmental continuity over formal statement. The architecture is intentionally subdued—not to erase its presence, but to allow life to take center stage. As Pallasmaa writes, “The door handle is the handshake of the building”—and in this project, the architecture is an extended handshake: subtle, relational, and perceptive to context.
By lifting the mass and opening the ground plane, the architecture becomes a facilitator of flows—of wind, of movement, of chance encounters. It performs as invisible infrastructure, quietly enabling multiple layers of spatial and social performance. This positions the building not as an autonomous object, but as a social condenser, echoing Cedric Price’s call for architecture to respond to behavior, not precede it.

2. The Role of the In-Between: A Space for Possibility
In-between spaces—thresholds, semi-exterior zones, plazas, ramps—serve a critical role in this project. They decelerate experience, offering moments of ambiguity and encounter. Unlike corridor-like circulation or clearly zoned seating, these transitional spaces invite pause, drift, and improvisation. They are fertile grounds for unexpected use.
This aligns with Homi Bhabha’s theory of the Third Space, where hybridities emerge through cultural and spatial negotiation. In Coffee x People, this is less about cultural hybridity and more about programmatic hybridity—the way architecture allows us to shift between modes: from resting to observing, from gathering to retreating.
In an increasingly programmed urban environment, such ambiguity is radical. It introduces the possibility of not knowing—a rare quality in commercial architecture.

3. Publicness, Temporality, and Everyday Ritual
The design challenges the private-commercial binary by opening the building to its surroundings. Through its plaza, visual openness, and lifted mass, the café becomes a semi-public node—one that supports urban continuity and informal social infrastructure.
But it also engages temporal rhythms: morning sun on the ramp, evening gatherings under the lifted mass, quiet mid-day reading in the sunken seat. These layered temporalities reflect the idea that space is not static—it is performed over time.
Architecture here becomes a frame for rituals, big and small: ordering coffee, meeting a friend, finding solitude, sensing the wind. In this way, Coffee x People is less a formal project and more a spatial choreography, responsive to the many ways people live, alone and together.

References :

Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. Routledge. (Referenced for the concept of the “Third Space” and spatial hybridity.)

Pallasmaa, J. (2005). The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses (2nd ed.). Wiley. (Key reference for multisensory architecture and experiential design.)

Price, C. (1998). The square book. Wiley-Academy. (Invoked in reference to architecture as behavioral infrastructure and soft programming.)

Zumthor, P. (2006). Thinking architecture (2nd ed.). Birkhäuser. (Referenced for the atmospheric and emotional resonance of architecture.)

Ito, T. (2001). Blurring architecture. In GA Document Extra 02: Toyo Ito – Blurring Architecture. GA. (Supports the conceptual dissolution of interior/exterior thresholds.)

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