Antek

ANTEK RESTAURANT The real challenge was the project’s budget. It is not difficult to create a palace with unlimited resources. But I was determined to prove that good design can compensate for overflow of abundance. First ideas came along as solutions to what caused original problems: organization of space, acoustics, and lighting.

But in search for deeper meaning for the reborn “Antek�, and with close involvement of the owner, we began to focus on ecological impact of our renovation on the environment. Those investigations lead to reinvention of common materials and elevating them to ranks of finish materials. Individual pieces of colorful felt, commonly used for packaging and silverware box lining, were positioned on walls. Home Depot distributed Homasote panels (post-consumer recycled content), commonly used for insulation or concrete expansion joints, were painted and used as suspended ceiling baffles.

During materials research we discovered new material: recycled and highly compressed paper and used it throughout for table tops (durable yet warm to touch) and serving bar-counter. We dimensioned everything in such a way that there was practically no material waste. To make the tables, we refinished and reused table legs from the original restaurant, which otherwise would have been discarded. Resilient flooring from Holland uses recycled content in its tiles; this item was not low priced, but we could afford it by now.