WAY Studio created a spatial upgrade for BIANCHI PLUS Italian Restaurant in Shanghai. The project extracts representative elements from Italian culture, including sculpture, painting, food, and nature, and reorganizes them into a continuous dining experience. Instead of treating sculpture as an object to be viewed from a distance, the design reverses the relationship between people and sculpture: guests are invited to dine inside a sculptural environment of curves, textures, light, tables, and planting.
The spatial language begins with marble-like sculptural lines and painterly brush textures. Curved walls soften conventional boundaries and contrast with the direct lines of the existing facade, while an entrance form grows outward like paint squeezed from a tube. A second narrative translates the sparks of grilled aged beef into a large lighting installation above the main dining room, linking fire, food, wine display, and atmosphere. Existing columns are turned into wine racks and semi-private enclosures, while abundant greenery, green-veined tables, curved seating, and private rooms extend the sculptural language throughout the restaurant. The result is both an Italian dining space and an inhabitable sculpture shaped by art, food, nature, and bodily experience.
