Coffee, Culture & History Meet at Café Sausalito

Third-wave coffee shop Café Sausalito was renovated and redesigned by architect Natasza Minasiewicz and interior designer Jennifer Hu of NNEE Studio as an homage to the authenticity and vibrant character of Sham Shui Po

Sham Shui Po is one of Hong Kong’s most dense, diverse and vibrant neighbourhoods, and some might say even its most authentic. These qualities, coupled with more affordable rental prices, have attracted a new generation of creative entrepreneurs who bring with them hybrid creative spaces and third-wave coffee shops. Michael Tam, who grew up between Sham Shui Po and California, is one such entrepreneur and the brains behind the recently renovated Café Sausalito.

The gut renovation and redesign is the result of a collaboration between architect Natasza Minasiewicz and her former student, interior designer Jennifer Hu of NNEE Studio. Stripping the modestly sized space back to its bare bones, the designers were keen to create a space that reflects its surroundings and features materials in a sustainable way. Cement walls and floors have been left in their raw state, contractor’s pencil markings still visible, and the ‘imperfections and nature of the building’s elements are left to express themselves,’ as Minasiewicz explains.

This rawness and imperfection is complemented by a nostalgic pebble wash, a finish that was used across the city in the 60s and 70s and has earned a place in the collective memory of Hong Kong’s citizens. Despite the practicality of the finish, it's a dying craft: it’s time consuming and messy, making it low on the list of skills young tradespeople want to learn. The team were lucky to have tracked down one of the city’s last pebble wash masters, meeting him just before he planned to retire, to apply the finish to the external facade and interior walls and counter, a move that introduced curves into the otherwise orthogonal space. Internal structural columns are clad in pastel-violet tiles, a reference to the colours of Hong Kong’s older buildings and a gentle counterbalance to the space’s rough-hewn finishes and hard edges.

Most of the loose furniture has been custom made from oriented strand board (OSB), which Minasiewicz describes as ‘a cheaper and stronger substitute for plywood, perceived as more sustainable as it isn’t produced from old growth trees and generally contains less formaldehyde than plywood.’ Sustainability and history also meet in the marble scraps, salvaged from the material library of the now-defunct neighbouring branch of SCAD, that have been set in white cement and covered in a layer of clear resin to form the tabletops.

What may at first appear to be a repetition of the industrial-minimal design tropes that cafe’s seem to favour these days, Café Sausalito is in fact a tribute to the Sham Shui Po of yore and, according to the designers, ‘an homage to the most iconic elements of Hong Kong’s urban identity and materiality’.

Words / Suzy Annetta
Images / Natasza Minasiewicz