Over Bakery

Over Bakery | China | 2022
[atelier tao+c]

With a length of 730 meters and a width of 5 meters merely, Lixi Road is not straight. Within this narrow street, historical residences, and aged community houses together with new office buildings have been placed to streamline and formed several twisted street corners, where the evolvement of city streets is traceable. The fabric indicates it is not the street that generates buildings, but the buildings that generate the street, and the uniquely organic feature of Lixi Road is endowed by these buildings, an ordinary road in Shanghai, tranquil yet vibrant.

Over Bakery seeks to reflect the community ambiance and fits into the street environment where time gently flows. Situated on the ground floor of a three-story office building, at the narrowest corner of Lixi Road, the south façade alongside the street has formed a slightly concaved elevation. The space, initially functioned as a warehouse, and the windows as well as the doors were adapted from the pre-existing exterior, half kept as a small door with a window, the rest fostering a void for cargo access.

The once edited façade has been retained as a pre-existing condition, retreated to the original wall with a transparent glass screen retouched in a slight twist, a shift in angle occurred, and an intermediate threshold to the road appeared. The sidewalk was expanded into the building, optimizing the motion between the storefront with street, and traffic. The door opening on the elevation has been transformed into window seats, while the window opening was renovated into a doorway, providing shelter for runners or passersby who walk their dogs. A conscious move to re-edit the past by superimposing to the recent present.

Natural lights are allowed to pass through continuous glass screens to the inside, creating a concave mirror effect and lighting up the whole space. The transparent and dual elevations that retained community memories have opened the interior to the street. The absorption of street view is further intensified by introducing daylights and weather to the inside, evoking one’s resonance with urban life. Text description by the architects.