03 Dec 2024
Wick Architecture & Design and Land Design Studio proudly introduce their brand design of the Santa Monica store of Odd One Out Tea, a Taiwanese company that has taken the concept of traditional bubble tea to new heights. With two stores in Taiwan, including the company’s flagship store in Taipei, Odd One Out Tea has now opened its second US outlet in Santa Monica, California, furthering its expansion into the US market with teams of mixologists, tea experts, and gelato maestros.
The project revolved around an existing commercial space on Santa Monica’s famed Third Street Promenade, a popular pedestrian mall that began to flourish in the 1980s when closed off to traffic. In addition to traditional stores that line the sides of the mall, its central corridor is marked by a series of kiosk-style businesses that cater to the pedestrian flow.
An infusion of brand DNA
After winning a bid from the city to lease one of the kiosk pavilions bookending the Promenade, Odd One Out Tea engaged Wick Architecture & Design and Land Design Studio to develop a design plan for the structure that would capture the essence of the business and the brand. They approached the firms with an expedited mandate for submitting a very detailed design set and proof of concept to the City of Santa Monica within three months, including plans, renderings, and material boards.
The client’s ultimate goal was to incorporate some of the DNA of its Taipei flagship store and to transform it in a way that would also respect the culture of Southern California. With a strong orange colour scheme at the brand’s core, that element featured prominently in the initial design set, with the design team envisioning the pavilion exterior accentuated in an ombre style.
A negotiated design scheme
For decades, the Third Street Promenade thrived, becoming one of the most popular shopping districts in the Los Angeles area by the 2000s. However, the post-pandemic era has been marked by a shift in consumer habits, and that effect has lingered along the Promenade. That gave the city a vested interest in the success of the Odd One Out Tea project, which aligned with ongoing efforts to secure more food and beverage concepts at the struggling north end of the Promenade. Accordingly, the city has recalibrated its focus to work with progressive young clients to help recharge and recreate the street.
That being said, the proposed colour scheme for the Odd One Out Tea store required extensive negotiations with the city before finally being approved.
“A large part of the negotiations revolved around being able to rebrand the entire pavilion, which had not been in the mindset of the city,” explains David Wick, principal and lead designer of Wick Architecture & Design. “With additional municipal restrictions on altering the roof and signage, we recommended that the building itself should be the sign, branded in the colours of the client.”
That type of negotiation is what made a collaboration between Wick Architecture & Design and LAND Design Studio the perfect choice for the Odd One Out Tea project, with over 100 food and beverage designs completed in their vast portfolio, including many coffee shops. In addition to being very familiar with the typology of the business, their extensive work in Santa Monica has provided them with an understanding of some of the city’s strict regulations.
A colourful integration
Once approved, the designers focused on a signature move to rebrand the exterior of the structurecolourfullyy. Additionally, while maintaining the existing shell of the building, including its rolling garage doors, they focused on a full redesign of its gutted interior. That included opening up the front half of the building for customers to place their orders and sit and enjoy their fare in an open, but sheltered space.
With the existing layout of the coiling garage doors, the firm faced a challenge in terms of the placement of lighting fixtures. However, in envisioning ‘unintentional’ lighting from the onset, their design solution was to introduce simple globe lighting to attract the eye to the ordering station, without distracting from the overall design of the space.
To convey the sense of pride that the company has in its craft preparation processes, the design team decided to expose the front-of-house production kitchen by implementing a glass divide behind the front counter. To further highlight the production zone, they punched a series of windows in the pavilion’s exterior shell to enable passersby to take in the kitchen operations and entice them to indulge in the products being prepared. In addressing municipal restrictions concerning signage, the firm evaded any issues by designing a series of smaller rectangular blade signs that emerged from the exterior to introduce the brand.
“We carried over some elements from the Taipei stores, including beautiful planting in the central seating area,” notes Wick. “We also clad the interior ceiling in cork, which is used abundantly in Taipei, and our design produces a rich, layered effect on the ceiling under the glass of the rolled-up doors.”
Designing a welcoming buzz
In leveraging their extensive experience and expertise to address the challenges of brand adaptation in a heavily regulated market, the designers have fulfilled the client’s vision with brand penetration that is contributing to a destination that people want to visit once again. Odd One Out Tea’s Santa Monica flagship is becoming a beacon of rejuvenated enthusiasm for the Third Street Promenade, spearheaded by the navigational skills and design excellence of Wick Architecture & Design and LAND Design Studio.
“One of the biggest challenges is that we were working with an existing envelope, andwe intendeds to successfully adapt that envelope to the client’s brand,” concludes Andrew Lindley, Founder and Lead Designer at LAND Design Studio. “It was really about the pop of the colour and the conceptual design, and we’re proud of what we accomplished here.”Technicall Sheet
Opening Date: August, 2024
