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Blue Bottle Venice

Aiming to Beguile

Blue Bottle Coffee’s Venice Beach location transcends its tiny size through restrained design moves that bring openness, transparency and a sense of craft.

Cool Beans

On the bustling street of Abbott Kinney in Venice Beach, JENSEN devised a sleek, refined coffee house that belies its small footprint. The result both stands out and feels at home amidst the eye-candy murals and street art of the neighborhood. Languid and beguiling, the space blends clean, technical vibes with hints of the building’s raw materiality. From a one-seat outdoor bench to custom casework with integrated components for coffee crafting and display, the spare aesthetic allows the coffee and the customers to take center stage.

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Sculpted Light

The space is washed with light from above through slots in the ceiling, a mix of natural and artificial light. The lighting helps the canopy and its original trusses and ducts read as a sculptural object that frames the entire space, preserving history while blending it seamlessly into the contemporary moment of every sip.

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Luminous LEDs

A luminous blue wall panel behind the bar is a focal point of the space, serving to make the small, narrow interior feel much larger — a technological twist on the familiar trick of using a mirror to make a space feel larger. The LED panel is illuminated with a subtly changing display that recalls the shifting hues of a cloudless Venice sky, granting a futuristic air to the space.

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Manufactured Nature

Being the primary site of encounter and interaction in the space, the ordering counter reflects the care JENSEN took to de-emphasize the boundary between customer and service, echoing concepts they have developed at other Blue Bottle locations. The counter is a floating block of wood that evokes the durably duplicitous aesthetic of the interior: simple yet technically complex; pure, but not entirely natural.

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Type
Retail
Client
Blue Bottle Coffee Company
Location
Venice

Architects

Project Leads
Mark Jensen
Lincoln Lighthill
Project Team
Paul Jones
Nick Sowers

Consultants

Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing
MHC Engineers
Lighting Design
Jensen Architects

Contractor

Plant Construction

Photographer

Mariko Reed
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