Pablo Muñoz Payá Arquitectos has completed a small food shop with green infills in the centre of Elda, Alicante, Spain. Called Kekomo, the architects converted an existing commercial building into a new shop with 60-square-metre space dedicated to the public.

Kekomo is a place selling ready-made meals where the outstanding features of its service are innovation in the variety of Japanese influenced dishes and preparation based on traditional techniques. 

The premises open onto Pi y Margall Street in Elda where the façade is faced with tiles of artisanal aesthetics which combine several models in graphite grey. 

The neutral, dark façade is intended to avoid taking attention away from the warm interior and thus to emphasise the iconic gabled section which extrudes from the interior to the façade. 

The exterior is as clear as possible, without any carpentry contours being visible, resolving and integrating all the technical aspects of closing the exterior: the entrance door, the fixed glassware and the security shutter.

The design is enriched with aesthetics of oriental character reflecting the type of food that is sold there. The studio creates a renovated space within the shop through a layer of wood that moulds the interior, providing this with the form of a gabled roof section. With regard to the materials used, the design is followed through with natural facings of white Carrara marble and oak. 

With these finishing touches, and in a very simple way, the space is elegantly decorated expressing great honesty towards the natural materials. The façade, the back of the interior, the display counter and the bar are all lined with this white marble laid out in book-match effect in order to organise geometrically the elegant veining that characterises it. 

Oak is used to create a warm, welcoming environment and green elements are added by placing plants in window boxes in order to bring about a closeness to nature.

As for the paving, porcelain tiles are used with a soft neutral grey finishing which can support a high level of walking on. Its lappato finishing affords the interior with greater reflection and luminosity and its neutrality allows the quality of the wood and the spectacular nature of the marble to be pronounced.

On the left hand side there are built-in furnishings varnished in anthracite grey which exhibit gourmet products. These are directly illuminated with track lights which afford great flexibility to the illumination, allowing the architects to direct a point of light to the show cases and to have global illumination on the ceiling, with the possibility of moving them at any time and having a new combination of light. 

On the other hand, on the right there is a bar, 4.20 m long with a central leg that projects to each side, where we will be able to taste the food that is sold. 

The leg and the base of the table are lined with mirror to give this a sense of lightness. The wall surrounding the bar has plants in planters bathed in light from a simulated skylight which cuts into the symmetry of the interior ceiling and creates an atmosphere of life and calmness. 

The access between the work area and the public area has been resolved zig-zag style by using partitions that create a visual block to the interior, allowing employees to enter and leave the workshop without having to open doors.

"The aim of this project is to achieve a business that is innovative both in its design and in the products offered, through a complete renovation of image," said the studio.

"The space has been envisaged as a comfortable, friendly, welcoming place offering a personal service which is, at the same time, highly professional and sophisticated."

Project facts

Name of the work: Kekomo
Autor: Pablo Muñoz Payá
Promoter: Javier Navarro
Builder: Luis Santiago López Martínez

Location: Elda (Alicante, Spain)

All images © Jesús Granada

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