Café Bobs is an offshoot of Bobs Restaurant, a 58-year-old family restaurant in Bacolod City, Philippines. Bobs Restaurant is a straightforward family restaurant, unlike Cafe Bobs, which is a unique café/restaurant as it caters to different group ages and has something for everyone. The whole place houses a deli, a bakery with stone-fired pizza and gelato bar, a wine room, a cigar room, function rooms, outdoor café seating on each floor, and even a roof deck bar that at times converted into a sports bar.
The roof deck and bar are undergoing construction and will be completed soon.
The lighting for this café/restaurant had to be cohesive yet particular, serving the individual needs of each area.
The transition from one place to the next is seamless and connected. Where the walls do not divide and, at times, are see through, lighting contributes significantly to this interconnectedness. The lighting for the wall of green bottles suddenly becomes a feature wall as one ascends or descends the stairs.
In the cigar room, the glass walls allow the views to be permeable inside and outside. The lit back shelves give depth to the space, and a single downlight highlights the coffee table, with the decorative floor lamps providing a cozy ambiance.
The screen walls with the Café Bobs Logo further emphasize the theme of uninterrupted connectedness between the spaces. Shining light onto these Café Bobs Logo Screen dividers cast a play of shadows on the bare walls, creating exciting texture and patterns on the floor and partitions.
Lighting for the Deli, the Bakery, and the Coffee counter used track lights to highlight the display and task areas. Special attention was given to the vertical illumination of walls and menu boards for more efficient and easy ordering.
A straightforward, simple dimming control was used for each area to simplify operations per the owner’s request. The lamp colour temperature was 2700K to give sparkle and add warmth to the place.
This project illustrates that light has a powerful silent language that connects or divides spaces depending on its use.
