Crema Espresso has positioned itself as the premium brand offering the ultimate coffee experience. The Westfield Carindale high fashion area required a specific kind of design that delivered the WOW factor yet in an understated and elegant way. The position required that the colour and finishes palette be subtle and neutral to reflect the quality of the kiosk’s neighbours.

The brand new Crema Espresso at Westfield Shopping Centre Carindale was revealed to the hordes of busy Christmas shoppers and from all reports has been doing very brisk business over the Christmas period. This new look Crema Espresso kiosk, is the first in what will hopefully be a very busy 2013 as the franchise goes from strength to strength. We designed the first and only Crema Espresso kiosk at Pacific Fair many years ago. The new look and feel of the kiosk came about in order to reflect the high standard of retailers in this precinct of the Centre, including David Jones and Apple. There was a lot of pressure to deliver something unique to this prominent and much sought after position, as only weeks before, Frank Lowy, the head of Westfield, had instructed that something very special was required here, so many people’s heads would be on the chopping block if this didn’t eventuate.

The biggest stipulation by the Landlord was that the kiosk must blend into the mall rather than dominate it. With a simple palette of white and charcoal we were able to achieve this brief. The almost all white staron kiosk, with its refined curves give it a very modern and contemporary feel. The Crema logo of the coffee cup and petals is incised into the pure white staron walls, with only the petals filled in with red acrylic. The bright red of the coffee machine serving counter provides a shock of colour and entices customers to walk around this sculpture which is the kiosk and explore it from different angles. The white stacked quartz to the apron of the front counter provides a textural contrast to the smooth white surfaces. The pylon sign is constructed out of clear glass so not to obstruct the line of the refined white walls of the kiosk.

The concept behind the seating area was to create a central sculptural form that would anchor the seating area. This breaks up what could have been potentially a ‘sea’ of chairs. The perimeter seating, a takeaway upholstered bench to one end, a communal bench with stools, and a comfortable banquette seat, with their white staron walls ties the concept in with the kiosk. The charcoal tub chairs provide a foil against the light palette and are in themselves very sculptural.

The new look Crema Espresso, with its refined white curves set amongst the cream of the shops in the Centre, has delivered what it set out to. Elegant and understated, this beautiful design is at home in the high fashion precinct, she doesn’t shout out with her presence, but instead makes a good neighbour in a place where discretion is high, discretionary spending that is.