The Craftery by SUBKO

Design Firm: STaND Design
Principal Architects: Nikita D’Silva & Siddhant Tikkoo
Location: Mumbai, India
Project Typology: F&B
Photographer: Kuber Shah

The Craftery by SUBKO finds itself unfurling in the embrace of the dichotomy of old and new. An abandoned Byculla industrial warehouse awakens from its spell of disuse as the brand’s artisanal roastery and café simmer to life within its walls.

Secluded in the industrial layout of Byculla – Mumbai within the JAK Compound, the decrepit warehouse was endowed with a new lease of life with SUBKO’s arrival amidst the sights and sounds of boisterous carrier tempos and antiquated haathgaadis (hand carts) that claim the context. With a layered history of being a former printing press in its operation, the expansive warehouse was overhauled with the processes of adaptive reuse. The architectural intervention resorted to honouring and celebrating the bones of the space while weaving the fabric of the specialty coffee and bakehouse into its embrace.

SUBKO is the brainchild of two connoisseurs and Co-Founders Rahul Reddy and Daniel Trulson. The impetus at their venues has been steadfast — to intrinsically reimagine the role of the Indian subcontinent in the global coffee and baking scene. With STaND coming on board to design SUBKO’s second franchise location, the welcome challenge at hand was to recontextualise the industrial scape to create a production and hospitality venue, unlike anything that dots the map of the country.

What sets SUBKO’s newest venue apart was its unconventional approach to consciously blur the threshold between the process and the product. It was an ode to the plantation to table journey that allowed the patrons to become one with the various steps of the complex procedures. The craft and submission to the process were the undisputed protagonists in the spatial scheme.

Anything but coy in its demeanour, the gala housing The Craftery is swathed in a trademarked ‘Kerala Green’. The colour bathes the stepped silhouette strikingly, creating an arresting visual for an onlooker. Celebrating its leitmotif green hue, the elevation is punctured by original barn doors that were refurbished to former glory, one that echoes the industrial sentiment of the site. The SUBKO emblem graces the split-handles in a monochrome finish.

Tendrils of tropical plants fall precariously from the crowning planter box above the entrance, establishing the dominance of the lush greens amidst an otherwise austere industrial compound. The barn doors are flanked by two illuminated signages — a minimalist representation of the coffee bean in the form of a diamond and a graphic croissant designed by Aniruddh Mehta of Studio Bigfat. Each of these signs is illuminated for the passer-by to know when roasting and baking processes are underway.

The milieu indoors is a concoction of the local and regional nuances that manifest as the material palette. The space created has been an extrapolation of the design elements that were handpicked for the first branch and then recalibrated to inhabit the starkly industrial context.

The column-less warehouse is bestowed with daylight that streams into the lofty volume of the gala through the North light trusses that crown the structure. In keeping with the visual grammar of coffee houses that speckle the country’s quaintest towns, The Craftery by SUBKO borrows its design cues from the past while innovating them for application within the resilient environment of the warehouse venue. The overarching vision was to allow the space to resonate with a process-driven design ethos, a functional and structured layout in which the creation of the product assumed the spotlight.

Materiality dons an industrial persona across the Craftery, a palette that furnishes humble materials in a newfound light. A coalition between exposed brick, crafted metal, Indian spotted marble, concrete, textured glass, teakwood, granite, and textured finishes on walls create the overruling canvas of finishes that present themselves in various forms. The layout is fluidic in its interpretation, creating a seamless conglomerate of functional segments that traverse an experience zone, the roastery, a sensory lab, and a dedicated cold room supplemented by ancillary sections.

The rectilinear layout maintains a clear central passage that runs axially across the length of the warehouse leading from public to private portions — this was a deliberate design move that allowed the spaces to remain tethered while ensuring that visitors got to witness all the activities at the Craftery in an unfiltered manner in the absence of secluded service entries.

The brimming communal heart of the venue resides in the Experience Zone which revels in a Southern Indian charm as the hallmark Kerala Green hue makes its foray indoors, layering the two-toned walls. In its conceptualisation, this portion of the layout allows the patrons to remain immersed in the buzzing processes that go on in the space across the span of the day.

The Experience Zone poses as a versatile space that can assume a community and alcove layout as per need. The custom furniture herein is a matrix of teakwood, woven jute, and metal finishes. A triad of arches native to the original factory structure were refurbished with brick infills.

The monolithic textured granite bar rests opposite the seating space; it became a robust iteration of the modest material that graces the kitchens of most Indian homes. The ebony island sprawls across the length of the space, accommodating a pastry bar and a set of two coffee bars on either end — the Espresso and Bloom Bars. The bar, despite its colossal scale, seems to levitate weightlessly with its downlit profile over the wooden flooring bordered by a copper and teakwood inlay.

The ubiquitous concrete flooring is dotted by the multi-script brass emblem of SUBKO that nods to the brand’s endeavour of belonging staunchly from the subcontinent which is an amalgamation of diverse cultures and dialects. These inlay details later continue in the roastery wherein they display the geographical coordinates of the coffee plantations from which the SUBKO beans are harvested; a subtle detail that traces the roots of the franchise.

A metal framework cascades from the ceiling, introducing a substructure of bay lights that illuminate the space through custom domical fluted glass shades. Bespoke 4-inch-thick industrial tube lights function as task illumination over the coffee bar counter and meshed two-tiered tube lights over the tables come alive as plant vines claim them whole. The wall lights have been christened as the ‘Mashaal Lights’ (मशाल) as they metaphorically resemble ignited torches.

Ingeniously designed barn doors separate the Experience Zone from the Roasting Section suavely — the sliding doors are a composite of reinforced textured glass on the top and mesh on the bottom half. SUBKO’s two coffee roasters occupy their rightful positions, bordering the central circulation passage. Slotted and angled shelves line the perimeter of the roastery, these towering racks are laden with jute gunny sacks that hold the produce. A Sensory Lab nook has been created for coffee cupping and interactive tasting processes for which anthropometrically suited furniture has been created. The massive HVLS fans overhead ensure that the temperature and humidity in the roastery are maintained at optimum levels to best preserve the produce.

Perceivably divergent in its design language from the larger blueprint, the Cold Room is reigned by a medley of monochromes and umber teak tones. Segregated spatially yet visually connected to the overall layout via a glass and metal partition system, the Cold Room is the locus of craft baking. The clear-glass partition allows customers to be privy to the baking processes as they happen. Made specifically as per the chef’s requirements, the whole-bodied teakwood island was constructed in Auroville, Pondicherry and is replete with impeccable craftsmanship seen with its handcrafted dovetail joinery.

The monochrome floors travel across the extent of the space, leading the eye towards the pièce de résistance — the croissant-motif statement wall which is synonymous with the brand’s DNA. Clad in six panels of Indian marble, the accent wall’s central panels portray the screen-printed logo. Illustrated by Designer Anuranjini Singh, the logo was screen-printed on the mammoth marble panels by Pritam Arts and painstakingly erected and plastered into position by the masons.

Created under the siege of excruciating challenges posed by the Pandemic’s restrictions, the venue is a testimony of resilience for the studio as this project witnessed the coming together of detail and process comprehension like never before! The Craftery by SUBKO extends itself to its patrons in an unpretentious guise, allowing the often-unseen processes to rank higher on the totem pole over predictable benchmarks of ambience. The design endeavours have focused on preserving the sanctity of the brand’s mission to serve homegrown offerings that bring nostalgia and contemporary design under one roof.