SEN

Category: Hospitality
Location: Taikoo Hui, Shanghai, China
Size: 1,200 sqm - L
Year: 2022

SEN delivers a unique Alpine forest-inspired dining experience. Embracing the "city life mountain love" concept, the design explores the tension between nature and urbanity, restraint and freedom. Refined materials (walnut, leather, limestone) contrast with industrial elements, creating a sophisticated yet warm backdrop. Carefully planned spatial arrangements with gently curving veils provide both intimacy and expansiveness, offering varied seating styles. Dramatic lighting transforms the space from a daytime office destination into an elevated evening venue. Key features include the functional bar, unique "PRISM" light installations reflecting mountainous topography, and versatile private rooms, culminating in a poetic, detail-rich atmosphere.

Alpine forest–inspired dining space with walnut, leather, and stone, blending natural warmth with industrial sophistication

Dining space with black parquet flooring, leather furniture, and semitransparent curtains for privacy

Dining space with black parquet flooring, leather furniture, and semitransparent curtains; a golden column reflects natural light

Dining area where sunlight filters through semi-transparent black mesh curtains, casting soft patterns on the floor and tables

Seating area enclosed by circular open shelving with bright orange accents displaying alcohol bottles

High-table seating area enclosed by circular open alcohol shelving with bright orange accents, offering a sense of privacy

Warm brown leather chairs around a wooden chevron-pattern table in a bright room with sunlight filtered through sheer white curtains

Custom lighting featuring a chrome mirrored sphere, acrylic panels, and bright orange accents

Clay-colored leather chairs around a wooden chevron-pattern table in a bright room with sheer white curtains and custom lighting

Open restaurant kitchen with staff at work and a central counter featuring hanging pans.

Chair leg details with mirrored metal ball feet, contrasting with warm wooden seat and black parquet flooring

Black leather seats accented with a bright orange industrial belt for a striking contrast

Table structure made of grouped tree trunks secured with a bright orange industrial belt

Bamboo trunks cast in concrete form black-painted blocks as a seating backdrop, creating vertical rhythmic negative bamboo shapes

radial brushed plates details are visible in glass furniture

Black leather seating bench with a backdrop of black concrete panels featuring vertical negative bamboo shapes and semi-transparent dark mesh curtains

Toilet sink in an immersive room featuring thin vertical golden tubes

SEN emerges as a hidden alpine sanctuary within an urban core, redefining fine dining through a poetic dialogue between wilderness and metropolis. Inspired by the ethereal beauty of mountain forests, the restaurant crafts dreamlike culinary journeys. Our design embraces the "city life mountain love" ethos, transforming the tension of nature versus human-made, restraint versus freedom, into a layered spatial narrative. The result is a tactile, atmospheric backdrop where every detail harmonizes with the epicurean experience.

Upon entry, guests encounter twin display shelves — functional art pieces framing an intimate waiting nook, setting the stage for the sensory voyage ahead. Gently arching veils of gauze cascade through the dining area, sculpting privacy without confinement. These ethereal dividers orchestrate an expansive yet intimate atmosphere, while a sweeping facade bathes tables in diffused afternoon light — a daily spectacle where sunlight filters like forest canopy through sheer fabric.

SEN seamlessly evolves with the hours: by day, a serene refuge for nearby office towers; by night, a luminous destination restaurant. This metamorphosis is amplified by meticulously engineered lighting — custom fixtures prototyped in-house — that shifts in color temperature and intensity, accentuating textures of walnut wood, supple tan leather, and honed limestone. A central bar anchors the space with purposeful simplicity, its form following function, flanked by elevated casual seating that overlooks the dining floor offering voyeuristic energy without compromising intimacy.

The private rooms embody versatility: boardroom by day, luxe dining salon by night. Here, the "PRISM" installation takes center stage — bespoke rotating lights cast kaleidoscopic arcs across contoured stone walls, evoking glacial erosion and mountain topography. As these fixtures pirouette, they mark time through refracted light, while curtains modulate natural illumination into chiaroscuro tableaux.

Materiality tells its own story: organic elements (oak, wool, leather) deliberately collide with industrial tectonics — oxidized steel, reclaimed machinery parts — creating unexpected yet refined assemblages. This juxtaposition echoes our philosophy: beauty in contrasts, poetry in precision. Even the washroom extends the narrative, serving both diners and ski training guests with integrated sauna and steam rooms.

At SEN, details transcend function. Every bolt, joint, and texture expresses our reverence for craft and human experience — where diners feel simultaneously connected to the room’s energy and cocooned in their own narrative. It’s a place where alpine soul meets urban pulse, and where light, shadow, and materiality converge into sublime theatre.