Hong Kong’s Trois Café Goes Back to the Future
This colourful café in the Wan Chai district pays playful tribute to the city’s architectural character.
The circular window at the front of Trois Café might feel like a portal to the future, but it’s actually a reference to the past. Led by Nelson Chow, principal of NC Design & Architecture, the sci-fi-inflected project is modelled after a key component of Hong Kong’s urban landscape: its 1960s and ’70s public housing estates.
Trois Café balances
the brutalist geometry
of Hong Kong’s public
housing estates with more
futuristic sci-fi details.
Inspired by the colourful facades of these buildings, the café’s bold, nostalgic palette is in welcome juxtaposition to the auto dealerships and bland corporate offices that surround it in the Wan Chai District. Trois Café takes the place of an old car rental location, but...
This content is available exclusively to My AZURE+ members.
To subscribe to My AZURE+, choose your preferred option below and get immediate access to the full magazine experience.
Thank you for supporting AZURE.
Subscribe Today
Choose your preferred delivery option from below and get access to groundbreaking architecture, vibrant interiors, inspiring ideas, exciting new furniture and products.
All subscription options include access to exclusive web content including the latest edition.
Print + Digital
From
$49.95
Combine print with the convenience of the digital edition powered by Zinio.
Access to exclusive web content.
Print
From
$43.95
Hold inspiration in your hands and immerse yourself in up-to-the-minute coverage of contemporary design and architecture.
Subscribe now and get convenient home or office delivery 6 times a year.
Access to exclusive web content.
Digital
From
$28.95
Enjoy the convenience of reading online or offline with the digital edition powered by Zinio.
Access to exclusive web content.
- #308
- Nov/Dec 2024
- Good design is synonymous with climate-conscious design in our Nov/Dec edition, which coincides with our inaugural Human/Nature conference.
- Get the Issue
- #307
- Sept/Oct 2024
- In the projects we feature throughout this edition, we hope to expand the definition of culture as it’s normally viewed in the realm of institutional architecture — and to hone in on works that stretch design’s possibilities in housing these new expressions.
- Get the Issue
- #306
- Jul/Aug 2024
- Our AZ Awards 2024 edition praises excellence across the many disciplines of design, as awarded by the renowned members of our jury and recognized by the People’s Choice vote.
- Get the Issue
- #304
- May/June 2024
- If two realms of work can be said to occupy opposite sides of the spectrum, they might be the industrial factory and the A.I. company. Standout examples of both types of workplace are featured in our latest issue.
- Get the Issue
- #303
- Mar/Apr 2024
- Simply put, this issue argues that we need more options, in everything from housing to healthcare to education. Can we create more options for how we house ourselves? For how we approach the housing and care needs of our aging populations who are especially fragile? For how we teach architecture to begin with?
- Read the Issue
- #302
- Jan/Feb 2024
- In this issue, we highlight homes that encourage personal expression and communal engagement — all of them specific to their particular contexts.
- Read the Issue
- #301
- Nov/Dec 2023
- In the magazine world, there is always the temptation to identify “emerging talents” or “change agents,” to seek people at the tipping point of their careers, before they are known entities. With AZURE’s Nov/Dec 2023 issue, we tried to move past these marketing hooks to shine a light on people doing great work that we wanted to tip our hats to.
- Read the Issue
- #300
- Sept/Oct 2023
- In our 300th issue, we look at the rich history of social housing in Vienna, exciting new commercial developments in Detroit, and how Naples has put art and architecture at the centre of its subway expansion.
- Read the Issue
- #299
- July/August 2023
- Throughout the pages of this AZ Awards issue, you will encounter marvels that boldly address both problems and possibilities.
- Read the Issue
- #298
- May/June 2023
- The expectation that people will keep their heads down at their workstations from nine to five with the occasional jaunt to the water cooler or sojourn in a group meeting has gone the way of the cubicle. Offices, post-lockdown, need to be places that provide mental and spiritual sustenance. And those featured in this issue do exactly that.
- Read the Issue
- #297
- Mar/Apr 2023
- In assembling the stories in this issue about circular design, one word kept coming up: value. By rethinking “value,” we’re also reclaiming our own values. If we want to strive for a healthier planet, one that is more ethical and sustainable, we have several examples to follow — and this issue is brimming with them.
- Read the Issue
- #296
- Jan/Feb 2023
- In preparing this edition of Azure, the first of the year and the latest of our popular annual houses issues, we sought out to present a diversity of typologies.
- Read the Issue