THE CAFÉ AMAZON ARTICLE SERIES CONCLUDES WITH THE STORY OF TWO OF THE BRAND’S CONCEPT STORES WHICH CENTER AROUND ITS OWN DISTINCT ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AND INTERIOR DECORATION CONCEPT
TEXT: PRATCHAYAPOL LERTWICHA
PHOTO COURTESY OF CAFÉ AMAZON
(For Thai, press here)
One of the challenges in Thailand’s café industry is the fierce competition among the players. As new businesses blossom, some are struggling to stay afloat. When it comes to cafes, consumers are offered a wide range of options. In their unwavering pursuit of success, Café Amazon continuously strives to develop new strategies that will help them maintain consumer recognition and loyalty to their brand.
By innovating its cafés, the Café Amazon brand is able to expand the diversity of its business. This is achieved through the introduction of new products and services, allowing the brand to effectively meet the ever-evolving needs and expectations of its customers.
Delivering special and memorable experiences is the tactic that Café Amazon has devised. The brand’s ‘Concept Store’ is a distinctive retail space that distinguishes itself from its standard stores. Each concept store is centered around its own distinct architectural design and interior decoration concept. The special café experiences are curated to connect with people’s lifestyles while aiming for each concept store to become an integral part of people’s lives by offering not only products but also a sense of community and positive memories. This concept, referred to as ‘Coffee x Life,’ which allows consumers to discover ‘new tastes of life,’ has been materialized into two concept stores under the Café Amazon brand. The brand is currently in the process of designing and expanding additional branches.
A Gate to Ayutthaya: The Café Amazon Concept Store at Phahonyothin KM.56
‘Landmark’ is the core concept underlying the store’s design, which aims to transform a café into “a door to local experiences” and associate its presence with a sense of belonging to a community, society, and the environment. Café Amazon Concept Store at Phahonyothin KM.56 is the first concept store created from such a notion.
The store, located on Phahonyothin Road in Ayutthaya province’s Wang Noi District, not only offers branch-exclusive menus such as the Unicorn Cotton Candy Frappe that draws inspiration from Ayutthaya’s famous sweet treat, Roti Sai Mai (an Islamic-influenced dessert served by wrapping cotton candy in sweet roti), the design of the concept store by P.O.P. Studio also stands out with its architectural form revised from Café Amazon’s popular ‘glass house’ design.
Instead of being a nondescript structure with a gable roof, the café has another layer of limestone wall envelope, aiding in heat filtering and ventilation. The new gap becomes a semi-outdoor area with varying plant species that form a little garden and add a lush, fresh feel to the space. While the limestone wall gives the building a sturdy appearance, the architect makes the overall structure appear light and airy with the street framework that protrudes from the building.
The large interior space is furnished in a dark gray tone, evoking the tranquil and peaceful atmosphere of an ordination hall. The natural color of wood and the green of plants encapsulate Café Amazon’s ‘Taste of Nature’ ethos. The black pillars branch out, replicating the attributes of a natural tree, while the extending masses sustain the weight of the stairway and the second level, where circulation is freely interlaced, allowing people to wander up and down the spaces using different routes. Another design gimmick appears in the form of a curved steel component that crowns the second-floor space, reminding one of the cages of ZonZon, the colorful macaw from the Amazon forest, and the brand’s iconic mascot.
Fostering Human Connection: Café Amazon Concept Store at Vibhavadi Rangsit 62
The ‘Unique Concept’ is another approach implemented in the design of the second concept store. It encompasses people’s ways of living and characteristics of the local community, which have been incorporated to determine the framework that not only defines the café’s curated experiences and decoration but also makes everything more meaningful.
Café Amazon Concept Store is located in the PTT gas station near the bustling Vibhavadi Rangsit 62 Street, right on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road. Centered on the ‘Coffee X People’ concept, the store is realized as a space that welcomes both regular patrons and casual customers to come in, work, have a meeting, hang out, or take a break during their journey.
SPACEOLOGY, the studio in charge of the store’s design, splits the functional program into three primary zones. The first is home to a retail space with a counter selling standard drinks as well as a ‘Concept Bar’ that serves Mini Specialty Coffee. Customers who come for takeout orders are accommodated in this section, where benches, chairs, and small tables are provided. The architect also included a flip-board panel for customers to use while they wait for their drinks, a little gimmick that invites users to interact with the design.
First Floor Retail Zone
Customers can sit more comfortably on the second floor, which is furnished with tables, chairs, and lounge chairs. The architect created an island with low counters in the center to serve as a play area for children. The co-working space is located on the other side of the second floor. There, visually appealing walls with a freeform design and layered surface are created using a specific painting technique that creates a unique textural feature. The pattern reveals vertical lines with a weightless, seamless texture that flows up to the ceiling, creating a cave-like space. Small stones are used to divide the space into different sections for group seating and private meeting rooms.
In comparison to other Café Amazon branches, the general decoration of the Café Amazon Concept Store at Vibhavadi Rangsit 62 employs freely curved lines and lighter color tones. The design is meant to create a welcoming and inviting atmosphere, in keeping with the store’s ‘Coffee X Customers’ philosophy, whose aim is to invite people to meet and interact inside its thoughtfully curated space. In the meantime, the predominance of green and lush design wonderfully reflects Café Amazon’s motto, ‘Taste of Nature.’
Diagram of Café Amazon Concept Store Vibhavadi Rangsit 62
Café Amazon’s success and rise to become the world’s sixth-largest coffee chain by number of outlets can be attributed to a variety of factors, including the talented team of executives planning the brand’s strategies, the baristas behind the counters, the support of a diverse customer base, as well as design, which serves as one of the pivotal mechanisms.
In this three-part series, various aspects of design infused in the Café Amazon brand have been illustrated, such as the formation of the brand’s identity, store designs, and the development of a construction process that allows for a shorter construction period with the highest level of efficiency. The power of design extends beyond the creation of visually appealing spaces. The design may help a brand affirm its identity and philosophy while also exploring new possibilities. This is perhaps the key to successful branding, which contributes to a business’s consistent and sustained growth as well as the emergence of a strong brand identity. This is what Café Amazon has accomplished, and it is the reason why the brand has grown to become one of the public’s most-loved coffee chains.