Chez Tex Restaurant

From Venice to Venice Beach: this project brings detail, materiality, and surprise to a challenging 1921 manufacturing shell in order to create a provocative atmosphere for dining and gathering. Seeking to benefit from the beach climate and create day/night flexibility, the boundary between street and interior is thickened into a chance place to enjoy waiting and host events. The new accessible ramp with floor-to-ceiling steel-and-glass storefront opens fully to catch breezes and invite in pedestrians. An unusually clean, hovering ceiling serves as the unifying element of the space and neatly disguises lighting and mechanical services. Venetian polished plaster bounces light deep into the space, and along with the white-on-white stenciled wall, enlarges the volume. The emergent-patterned stencil and hand-printed blue and yellow ceramic tile of the WCs, both custom-designed and made by Triadic Studio, provide unexpected twists against the palette of concrete, steel, and wood. In all aspects, this project plays on tradition and infuses an architecture of the everyday with wonder.