Blue Bottle Coffee Roppongi Cafe

The cafe sits on a back street away from a busy avenue, facing a small sunken public plaza that works like a park anyone can wander into.

The design team pictured a cafe that stays beside the plaza and quietly takes it in. The main finish is basswood plywood. Every wall is made of cabinets with doors set in a regular rhythm, and that strict order is loosened by irregular frames that gather several doors into one.

The glazed front turns the counter toward the trees of the plaza, so the calm, even interior and the green outside are read together.