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Kingston Lafferty Design (KLD) has transformed the empty shell of an existing compact retail unit in Dublin into Cinnamon Restaurant, a pastel paradise perfectly balancing sophisticated design with the functional realities of everyday life. With its mezzanine kitchen and a bar, this hospitality venue stands as a playful celebration of colour, shape, and texture, employed to orchestrate a sensory experience that unfolds as guests move through the space.

KLD’s design philosophy is grounded in an appreciation for how people live and work. These observations became the foundation for this project, ensuring those who engage with the space may find both meaning and beauty in their encounters.

Movement throughout the interior is guided by deep maroon floors which are periodically sliced open by dusty blue circular tiles. This pastiche of colour becomes the runway that leads guests into each different microenvironment existing alongside one another.

Four-meter ceilings tower over users as bright sunlight crawls over all surfaces of the entrance. Soft leather couches bend around cosy seating arrangements – the perfect place to wake up slowly with direct sun on a Sunday morning. Suddenly, and as if entering a different restaurant, 10 steps down the corridor warm sunlight gives way to the moody glow of a hanging pendant. An intimate velvet-covered seat wraps itself around a space carved out of the side of a wall, a setting with ample amounts of personality and drama. Each pocket of space, created by the injection of a new mezzanine, takes on a different and playful personality which facilitates the unique desires of individual customers – human experience clearly the main focus of the design scheme.

There is a dream-like quality to the interior, designers aiming to “create a light-hearted and child-like space with an element of escapism”. Bespoke light fixtures become oversized lollipops glowing throughout the room. A wall of circular mirrors capture the light before reflecting it onto adjacent high-gloss surfaces – customers sitting beside them encouraged to watch as they shimmer before them.

There is experimentation with scale too. The main entrance deliberately maintains a double-height wall while the additional bar was designed as an oversized element that makes visitors feel miniature with “a dollhouse effect”. The space is almost theatrical – simple shapes become building blocks and buttons to play with, while differing textures encourage touch that draw users to engage with the space.

Cinamon restaurant invites its visitors to become characters in a story. Upon stepping into the pink and maroon dipped room, they experience their environment in a fun and unexpected ways, cementing KLD’s success in encouraging us to think differently about design.

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