Café Nuances Marais

A small coffee bar opens onto a historic street through a fully glazed front, so the whole interior reads from the pavement as a single glowing room. It is a new outpost of a specialty coffee roaster whose shops share a signature orange, applied here as a gradient across the walls that grows richer as the daylight changes.

The room holds almost nothing besides one object. A long counter is wrapped in small stainless steel pieces shaped like crumpled cups pressed into blocks, a nod to the hundreds of paper cups a busy espresso bar throws away each morning and to the compressed metal sculptures of César. Without the reference, it still stands as an abstract sculpture at the centre of the space.

Stainless steel carries through the rest: polished cube stools, the coffee machines and the fittings. Some stools are topped with the same crushed metal as the counter. Mirrored panels on the ceiling and the reflective seats multiply the small room, while a smooth grey concrete floor gives a quiet base beneath the shine.

A light installation set into the façade lets the café take part in the street, so the window works by day and by night as a lit box rather than a conventional shopfront.