Tetsuya Matsumoto Is Honored with the Silver A' Design Award for The Grand Blue Express Restaurant in Interior Space and Exhibition Design

Tetsuya Matsumoto honored for interior space and exhibition design by the international grand jury of the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 21, 2022 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that The Grand Blue Express Restaurant by Tetsuya Matsumoto, designed for Nautilus Ueno, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Interior Space and Exhibition Design category. The result belongs to the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

What the Silver A' Design Award Means

The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.

Regarding The Grand Blue Express Restaurant

The Grand Blue Express is a luxury aquarium dining restaurant in Ueno, Tokyo. The renovated space limited to 95sqm took on the 5th floor of a mixed used building. Inspired by luxury trains, the design tries to overcome the small space limitations to both accommodate the aquariums and provide the luxurious atmosphere the restaurant aims to implement. The dining room takes the form of a corridor coach that serves the individual cabins on both sides. each cabin is equipped with its aquarium installed to mimic the train windows, creating the impression to be inside a train cruising underwater.

About Tetsuya Matsumoto

Tetsuya Matsumoto is the founder and Head Architect Designer at KTX archiLAB based in Japan, and a Lecturer of a space design course at Osaka University of Art. After graduating from the same university, he specialized in commercial space design and built a large portfolio of projects varying both in type and scale, from shops and restaurants to offices and clinics, and from a small pharmacy to a large Hospital. Tetsuya has received more than a hundred local and international design awards and became a jury member for several prestigious prizes.

Award Record

With this recognition, Tetsuya Matsumoto is a winner of 18 A' Design Awards. The awards span the editions from 2014 - 2015 to 2021 - 2022 of the A' Design Award & Competition.

About the A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award

The A' Interior Design Award is an international interior design competition recognizing good interior designs by interior designers and architects worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to interior designers, interior architects, architects and decorators from all countries. Entries typically include residential interiors, restaurants, hotels, offices, galleries and retail stores. Awarded interior designs are published at https://desingers.org/design-category/interior

About A' Design Award & Competition

A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Winner Page: https://desingers.org/136354
A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/136354
Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!136354
Laureate Profile: https://desingers.org/d/148039
Further Information from the Laureate: http://ktx.space/

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project: The Grand Blue Express Restaurant
Function: Restaurant
Category: Interior Space and Exhibition Design
Discipline: Spatial Design
Industry: Architecture and Packaging & Retail
Colors: Dark Olive Green, Dark Slate Gray, Black, Dim Gray and Rosy Brown
Images: 5
Client: Nautilus Ueno

The Recognition

Laureate: Tetsuya Matsumoto
Country: Japan
Recognition: Silver A' Design Award
Edition: 2021 - 2022
Design ID: #136354

Credits

Team: Motoaki Takeuchi and Risa Iriyama

Design Details

Unique Properties: The renovation work for the aquarium dining restaurant took place on the narrow 5th floor of a mixed used building in Ueno, Tokyo. The restaurant is inspired by luxury cruise trains and imitates them to produce a small yet luxurious atmosphere for the dining room. The seats are made into train cabins where the windows are replaced by aquariums. The space turns on to offer an immersive experience with the impression of being inside a train cruising underwater.
Inspiration: The space was inspired by luxury trains rides which offers various services. The trains are composed of several wagons with special functions and special layouts. The restaurant combines two types of wagons, the cabin and the dinner and merge them to create a dining cabin, and since the restaurant theme is aquarium dining, the train windows are replaced by aquariums to create a simulation of a train cruising under the water.
Research: The experiment of this project was to find a way to imitate a luxury train experience on a concrete building inside the urban jungle of Tokyo. How can a built interior space offer the same experience than a moving dynamic wagon and how can interior materials be used to simulate an automotive space? The combination of material use, dimensional canons, and geometrical shapes were the core of this design exercise.
Challenge: The client abstract when starting this project is to produce a luxury aquarium dining experience, however the total floor area to be used, including the kitchen is no larger than 95sqm and the height under the beams is limited to 2.3m. How can such a narrow place offer a luxury experience was the main challenge leading to the concept of luxury cruise trains. the second challenge was to integrate the aquariums in this composition without altering the concept.
Realization and Technology: The walls are made using dry wall techniques. The floor is covered in ceramic tiles. While the ceiling is finished in vinyl cloth mainly, except for the central corridor ceiling which is covered in special stainless panels that imitates water waves. The aquariums are surrounded by steel frames with a golden baked painting finish. On the top of the frame another round steel panels that allows access to the aquariums for maintenance purposes.
Operation and Interaction: Since the restaurant is located on the 5th floor of a building the access is done through the elevator that opens to a small welcoming hall. At the corner a circular shaped sofa. Then the corridor along the space serving the cabins on both sides. on the left, four two-seaters cabins and on the right four other four-seaters cabins. At the end of the corridor the VIP cabin. The kitchen is accessed on both extremities of the corridor on the right side.
Project Duration and Location: Project start: July 2021. Construction start: December 2021. Project/Construction End: February 2022. Location: Ueno, Tokyo, Japan.
Specifications: Gross Built Area: 95sqm W15325mm x D8300mm x H2390mm
Keywords: Japan, dining, aquarium, restaurant, Tokyo, blue, train, immersive, hospitality, commercial