Movie nights — and especially classic movie marathons — all but demand takeout pizza. Cueing up the original Star Wars trilogy? Time to place an order for some pepperoni and cheese. With that in mind, it seems only natural that, when it came time for Montreal-based architecture and design studio MRDK to plot out the eighth location of Toronto pizza empire , they started off by taking a page from George Lucas’s cinematic galaxy.
Inspired by the sci-fi saga’s opening sequences, in which , the design team (which also included as the project’s architect of record) developed an exterior lightbox awning that depicts the North of Brooklyn logo “crawling” its way into the first-floor takeout area inside, where the lightbox transitions into a glowing ceiling grid.
North of Brooklyn divides toppings for its custom pies into two categories — “basic” and “fancy” — and based on that classification system, this ground floor area (which also houses the pizzeria’s kitchen) sticks to tasty but unfussy ingredients. In this case, instead of basil, olives or pepperoni, it’s DTILE molded tiles, which wrap around the entire room and even seamlessly curve into a row of counter display niches that showcase sauces and sodas. In a few cases, the tiles even fold outwards to create clothing hooks for restaurant merch.
Upstairs, on the other hand, we enter the realm of gourmet calabrese sausage and sun-dried tomatoes. Dubbed the Low Rise bar and dining room, this elevated 40-seat second storey space nods to warm Italian trattorias with details like the mosaic-tiled bar and leather-cushioned bar seating, but again layers in fun futuristic flavour. After clustering mechanical systems around the perimeter of the room in bulkheads coated with high-gloss paint, MRDK introduced a glowing cove ceiling at the centre of the room that is lit in a sci-fi glow. Additional warmth arrives via a fluted In Common With pendant hung above the bar.
Returning to retro Italian influences, green leather banquettes set on folded steel feet take inspiration from a design by Milanese industrial designer Joe Columbo. These are seated around walnut dining tables that cantilever out from the walls in new window niches cut into the side façade to introduce more daylight. Combined with the white wall paneling and burgundy ceiling, these green chairs and tables deliver a subtle expression of Italy’s signature palette.
The tile-clad washroom zone, for its part, serve as the project’s final topping, splashed entirely in a red hue that is perfectly evocative of pepperoni. This holiday season, pizza night can’t come soon enough.
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