A café full of steel and nature

A Beijing café combines steel with greenery to create a beautifully natural interior scheme that is practical yet welcoming.

This innovative design by Penda uses recycled steel, painting the material black and manipulating it into bars for modular dividers.

The steel grid holds dozens of wooden boxes in an irregular (a striking design statement in itself), which are eye-catching and help to define areas of the café. But it’s the light cubes in random modules that elevate this funky feature to art, and while the bookshelves in the grid add an erudite air, this unusual lattice is all about the plants.

Literally giving the café’s interior some life, the plants’ strong, plush green adds a hit of colour and texture. It also makes a fantastic environmental statement: based in a city with a heavily polluted atmosphere, it’s hoped that the café will set an example with its air-purifying, easy-to-grow plants, which include spider plants and sword fen.

You can find out more about this stunning design here.