Flipboard Cafe

Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne

Flipboard Cafe 

Brolly Design

ARCHITECTS
Brolly Design

DESIGN TEAM
Martin Heide, Megg Evans

WINDOWS SUPPLIERSC
Payne Timber

PHOTOGRAPHS
Tanja Milbourne

AREA
25 M²

COST
$150.000

YEAR
2013

LOCATION
Melbourne, Australia

CATEGORY
Coffee Shop

Flipboard Cafe, calved from a lost site in the city, is a tiny multi-level nook that serves fine space with a side of excellent coffee and healthy food.

Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne
Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne

The cafe is nestled in the intersection of an emergency exit from Bennetts Lane Jazz Club below, the thoroughfare to Brolly Studios behind, and a two decade old unused shop-front window.

The space had once been a transient uncentered passage but has now become its own destination whilst still maintaining its other activities.

Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne
Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne

In the renovation of the front facade we found spaces that had been lost to previous weak and unimaginative occupants who had plasterboarded it shut.

We opened it, and it is now one of the few eddies that interrupt the flow of foot traffic on La Trobe street as you can inhabit the facade in cosy cubbies.

Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne
Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne

The central staircase is an obvious feature, helping to shift the paradigm of coffee shops from the horizontal to the vertical. 

It also helps to build depth in the space and interrupts the eye just enough to make it hungry to see more.

Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne
Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne

The nooks and niches where you can deposit your time are intimate by nature, being small, yet expansive due to the light, the openness of the windows and their proximity to other recesses - a secondary interiority that folds out in its own temper, like the backstage of a theatre.


Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne
Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne
Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne
Flipboard Cafe
© Tanja Milbourne


Flipboard Cafe
Ground Floor Plan
Flipboard Cafe
Mezanine Floor Plan


Flipboard Cafe
Axonometric
Flipboard Cafe
Elevation


Flipboard Cafe
Section