Pastry Club Woda isn’t your run of the mill bakery. As its moniker suggests, the space, located in Bydgoszcz, Poland, is hybrid: a bakery by day and a club come night. Even more though, it eschews the neutral, muted colors typical in bakeries. Instead, Polish studio Znamy się and architect Paweł Tatara revel in colorful juxtaposition. Cobalt blue coats the floors, counter, and seating, contrasting against warm orange details. The hues are purposeful. Blue and orange represent the separate day and night functions of the space, as well as mimic the locale of the bakery.
Znamy się converted an old boiler house within the historic Rother’s Mill complex to create the bakery and club. Situated in Bydgoszcz’s Mill Island, the building is surrounded by water. This proximity to inland water transport is crucial now for the site’s current grain and flour granary storehouse and in the past, when it was a historic mill. The architects employed blue to represent the location’s abundant water, while orange represents the sun. The custom-built counter made with rounded cobalt tiles from DTILE, divides the space from the kitchen and customer area, creating spatial flow that nods to the water’s qualities. The subtle shape of the tiles further this concept, adding an organic quality to match the movement of the water.
Above the bar hangs an orange-coated wheel that houses wine bottles and glassware. The horizontal shelves, visible through the textured glass, evoke a sun setting on the horizon. When the bakery transitions to a club, the hue shifts, as the color reflects against glass as a subdued neon glow.
The walls, wrapped in vertically grooved plaster, are an ode to the millstones and the raked traces used in flour production. Steel hardware decorates the countertop to nod to the building’s industrial past. An open layout lets customers glimpse the technical processes happening in the kitchen. The architects felt the visible production was an important aspect to the space to honor the grinding, cooling, sifting, and packing of flour that used to take part there. It also, of course, provides customers a better sense of the pastries on display.
In design as well as function, Pastry Club Woda departs from the norm. Eclectic and energetic, it mixes bold colors that work in the daytime as well as it at night, and it merges industrial heritage with modern fixtures. Duality is omnipresent, and Znamy się uses it to striking effect.
