Restaurants · Working With Us
How long does restaurant design take, and how is it priced? Start from the opening day.
Design typically takes 3 to 6 weeks and construction about 45 to 75 working days. Work backwards from the opening day, see what stretches the schedule, and how the fee is set.
Commercial · Special Techniques
This Wall of Stone Was Shaped by Hand
No drawing can hold a free-form surface, and what cannot be drawn cannot be built. So we went to the site and shaped it, point by point.
Restaurants · Before You Start
What a Designer Will Ask You to Prepare Before You Open a Restaurant
Opening date, lease and site, menu, seats and average spend, what the budget covers. Bring these to the first meeting.
Restaurants · Budget
How to Set a Restaurant Fit-Out Budget, and Where It Overruns
Price the base works first, then the finishes. The budget comes in two parts, and variations are staged, not continuous.
Restaurants · Circulation and Yield
Restaurant Circulation and Yield per Ping: Work It Out at the Design Stage
Where the guest, food and dish routes cross is where peak service jams. Derive seats from staffing, then check the plan in five steps.
How We Work · Choosing a Firm
Choosing a Commercial Design Firm: Eight Questions for the First Meeting
A portfolio only shows what a firm has drawn. Ask what they answer for when something goes wrong.
F&B Space · Special Techniques
The Shape Was Not Carved. It Was Calculated.
The wall in a restaurant that looks like whipped cream was never spread by hand. The first version came out wrinkled at the centre of every swirl.
F&B Space · Special Techniques
Twenty Thousand Tiles, and No One Picked Them One by One
A flat sheet will not wrap a doubly curved bar; the worst sheet would have come up nine tiles short. The artist painted on the unfolded templates, and the computer decided every tile.
Residential · Special Techniques
The Position Was Not Chosen
Sprinkler pipes, throw angle, a double-height ceiling: one by one the positions were ruled out. The one that remained could not hide it.
F&B Space · Special Techniques
Print One Segment First, Then Design the Lamp
The line of light over the curved bar at Monte is 3D-printed. The printer could not print it long enough and the sample resins did not match, so the first segment became the standard for the whole lamp.
F&B Space · Drawing Method
Where the Error Is Allowed to Happen — The Drawing Set at Belvoir
The shopfront, bar and banquettes at Belvoir were all built elsewhere and brought to site. Whether that works depends not on the factory but on the drawings: which numbers are fixed, and which are allowed to give way.
Brand Definition · Design Method
ON Stands for Two Words
Operation and Narrative. A space with only narrative is a stage set; one with only operation is a factory. To survive, it has to be both.
How We Work · Pricing Logic
What does design cost per ping? We publish the number, and the logic behind it
NT$8,000–12,000 per ping, plus 12% for site supervision. The number is not the point — what it buys is.
Office Space · Design Method
Constraints Don't Limit Design. They Reveal It — Lessons from a One-Month Office Build
When time compresses to a single month, every element that stays has to justify itself out loud.
Retail Space · Circulation Design
The Path Is the Real Product of Retail Design
Desire isn't ignited by the display — it warms up only after you take the next step.
F&B Space · Small-Footprint Design
Thirteen Pings, and the First Decision Was the Kitchen — Constraint as the Condition for Precision
Design doesn't begin its work in abundance. It produces under constraint, for the sake of an exact solution.
Residential · Stonework
It Is Not a Glowing Wall — It Is a Stone That Lights Up Only Where It Can
The stone lights up only where it can.
Residential · Kitchen Planning
A Straight Bar Seats Four People in a Row
The shape of a counter decides how people sit at it.
Residential · Bathroom Planning
What You Cannot Move Decides Everything You Can
What you cannot move decides everything you can.
Residential · Detail Design
One White, Three Ways of Speaking — Precision Is the Only Ornament
Matte coating absorbs light, gloss lacquer reflects it, fluted panels cut it into bands: one colour, three materials. When the background is quiet enough, order appears on its own.
Residential · Old and New
A Collection Does Not Need a Gallery. It Needs a Daily Life.
How does a collection of old pieces move into a new home? New frames step back, old and new sit side by side, and the gap in time is left to exist.
Residential · Space & Material
The Columns Could Not Move, So Everything Else Did
Two columns could be neither removed nor moved, and every interior line had to give way to them first. We did not box them square. We curved the whole interior and let the surfaces swallow them.
Residential · Open Plan
A Path, Not a Set of Rooms — Ceiling Height in Place of Partitions
A continuous curved ceiling defines the zones by height instead of partitions. The whole home is a path, not a set of rooms.
Residential · Space & Material
One Home, Three Volumes — Residence R After a Door Was Removed
A door is a decision about where the room ends.
Residential · Method & Making
Where the Error Is Allowed to Happen — Cutting an Island
Every cut is a decision about where the error goes.
Residential · Method & Making
A Curve Has No General Solution
A machine can make the shape, but not the surface. The matte finish was ground by hand, section by section; the bathroom’s rounded corners are 3D-printed as the substrate.
F&B Space · Street Facade
The Facade Is the First Thing a Brand Says — Before It Speaks
What does a facade actually say before you walk in?
Hybrid Space · Programme Integration
The Hardest Part of Design Isn't Uniformity — It's Letting Differences Coexist
What holds two different things together without making them the same?
Retail Space · Brand Worldbuilding
Two Unnecessary Columns — When a Space Is Honest, a Brand Gains Gravity
What does a brand need to believe in before it builds a world?
Medical Space · Facade Design
You've Already Arrived Before You Walk In — A Clinic's Opening Line
You've already arrived before you walk in.
F&B Space · Light and Color
A Color With a Switch — ELLE Café's Pink Appears Only in Light
What if a color could decide when to show up?
Office Space · Corporate Brand Space
No Decision Here Does Only One Thing — Translating a Corporate Brand into an Office
Every decision above your head was made for a reason.
Showroom · Material Narrative
The Wall Is Not the Background. It Is the Exhibit.
Too much design and the material disappears into the space; too little and there is no reason to walk in. The answer is to make the wall the exhibit, and let movement become the medium of display.
F&B Space · Owner's Perspective
If Design Only Looks Good, It May Be a Restaurant's Most Expensive Liability
A record we earned the right to write only after paying the tuition — three questions from the redesign of de nuit.