Design firm: Yiduan Shanghai Interior Design, Shanghai
The details: Dominated by steel and tile, the façade of Shandao, a five-story restaurant and banquet hall in Fuzhou, China, is awash in bamboo and is the first powerful glimpse of how Xu-Jun Xu, founder of Shanghai studio Yiduan Shanghai Interior Design, transformed a dull office building into a luxurious, earthy escape that “brings guests an innovative visual experience.” The tiles, he adds, are fashionable, modern, and simple, and “the light that penetrates through them is eye-catching and impressive.”
Inside, bamboo’s importance is conveyed in the circular cream, black, and gray-hued lobby, where a barrage of sticks dangle from the ceiling with flower-shaped light fixtures. Yet, that is just a hint of what’s to come. Beyond reception, every table is separated by and cocooned in a towering basket fashioned from bamboo. These transparent, peekaboo partitions of different sizes create a dramatic aura of solitude and peace, “enabling guests to feel like they are entering a world of bamboo forests,” says Xu. “This arrangement changes people’s single impression of a restaurant as just a dining space because the natural bamboo brightens people’s eyes, gives us a warm feeling, and makes our lives more beautiful and colorful.”

Inspired by the rose, Xu embraced a fluid, pentagonal shape at Shandao. Illuminated staircases are also hidden inside the baskets, allowing patrons to organically and mysteriously circulate through the bamboo to reach Shandao’s different dining and catering areas. Along with the wealth of calming bamboo (200,000 pieces to be exact), Xu opted for pure materials like cement and straw, while steel plates “strengthen the structure of the baskets,” says Xu. “The two materials form a contrast between coldness and warmth.”