The Cumarú Restaurant, located on Nueva Costanera Avenue in Vitacura commune, Santiago de Chile, was born as an assignment regarding materiality. The owners of this restaurant got a big quantity of cumarú timber, which is a wonderful and noble material. The first consideration was to opt, as any of our works, for a unique material. So, the interior and exterior lining of the building, ceilings, windows, floors, deck, and party walls were made of wood.

A second architectural idea was to bury the building in order to get new levels and higher heights in dining rooms and yards. A rear terrace over a wooden deck was created under the trees with a bar; and a front terrace in front of the street, buried, in order to be protected from the cars but not from pedestrians.

A third terrace, covered and protected from the wind, was enabled on the second floor, open to the street and rear yard, where two sofas were located next to a central kitchen, which allows the chef to interact with guests, apart from giving place to cooking classes and events.

The crystal red sign is the only element that stands out as a fauve, above the wood. The interior acoustics was solved using a perforated steel ceiling. Lighting combines cold and warm elements that highlight spatiality and tonalities proper of cumarú wood.

Photographs: Nico Saieh

Designed by Gonzalo Mardones Viviani

http://karmatrendz.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/cumaru-restaurant-by-gonzalo-mardones-viviani/