Freia, a restaurant designed by RAUM and located on the upper floor of a parking structure in the center of Nantes, France, is conceived as a glass volume that opens the interior to wide views of the city, blends the garden with the indoor space, and creates an open, fluid spatial experience.
The Freia gourmet restaurant (1 Michelin’ star) is housed in a glass building (look like a greenhouse) located on the 6th floor of a multi-storey car park in the centre of Nantes, with wide views on the railway station and the city.
The outdoor garden extends into the restaurant and provides some of the herbs and flowers used in the kitchen.
In keeping with the blurring of boundaries, the kitchen is largely open to the dining room, fitting under a large oak mezzanine, which also hides all the technical elements, leaving room for a large open space.
Short Bio
RAUM is an architecture studio founded in 2007, where research and experimentation on ways of inhabiting the contemporary world are developed.
Its working method grows out of the singular qualities of each site and each program: starting from the specific to “build toward generality.” In other words, it approaches architecture as a relational tool between the local and the universal, between place and environment.
If the challenges of contemporary architecture lie precisely in this dual attention to the particular and the collective, the hypothesis advanced by RAUM is neither nostalgic nor imitative: it is through the creation of singular situations that architecture can generate a desire powerful enough to transform reality. Building is RAUM’s medium, at multiple scales and across a wide range of disciplinary fields—contemporary art, individual and collective housing, workplaces (tertiary, public, agricultural), educational spaces, and cultural venues.
RAUM is also a workshop where prototypes and screen prints are produced, where residencies, exhibitions, and concerts take place—a place in perpetual construction where material is continually tested against the world.
Facts & Credits
Title Freia Restaurant
Typology Interior, Restaurant
Location Nantes, France
Surface 200 m2
Status Completed, 2024
Architecture RAUM
Photography Charles Bouchaïb
Text by the authors
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