La Manousheria

Design of a hotel and catering business in Zaragoza

La Manousheria in Zaragoza is one of those projects within a creative studio that represent a turning point, an example of well-coordinated complexity solved problem by problem.

Client: Michel
Surface area: 70 m2
Status: Completed
Timeline: May 2019 – June 2020
Location: Zaragoza
Type of project: Catering Premises

The integration of a new culture, the architectural adaptation of an innovative business plan and the creation of a brand image were added to the usual boundary conditions associated with a restoration project.

All this spiced with the inclusion of the project within the integral rehabilitation of a building where Cronotopos was working with a second client and, as if that were not enough, with the additional commitment to make a successful project for Michel Abi Nader, a very good friend of the studio who helped us with our project in Saudi Arabia.

The study work consisted of the design and construction of a hotel establishment approaching it from all levels; opening license, graphic design, rehabilitation, reform, interior design and construction and construction management. All this under the protection of an established budget that had to be adapted to make the establishment viable.

The project is based on the existence of two worlds that separate the restaurant in two from its façade to its interior.

On the one hand, there is the tidy, clean and neat mole represented with light colors and white ceramic tiles where the raw material is processed, cooked and served. Michel’s Lebanese world where all kinds of machines are located, including the only Lebanese refractory oven in Spain and a traditional rolling mill among others that make this space the engine and brain of the Manousheria.

While the server space of the project is perfectly calculated neuron by neuron and machine by machine, the TOPOS served becomes a miscellaneous and integrative world that seeks to reflect the traditional Lebanese essence through raw materials such as steel, glass and nature and the abstraction of a contemporary world through the generation of a glass of micro cement, the use of materials such as OSB and indirect light.

The result is an interior design with a certain neo-industrial touch that leaves room for a changing CRONOS that expands and contracts the number of diners depending on occupancy needs. In this changing space that represents the heart and feeling of the project, a 20×20 corrugated mesh is generated with enough rigidity to seasonally hang from it those interior design elements that make the Manousheria a living element. A fork, a pot, a plant or any other element can be susceptible to be hung from that game board that is made available to Michel to represent the seasonality of interior design.

The façade, honest with the building in which it is integrated, shows the internal duality but provides a touch of abstraction and, at the same time, obtains an extraordinary functionality through the generation of two industrial doors that folding on themselves make room for eight additional diners. A solution that more than justifies the high price of the doors as they are a source of extraordinary income for the restaurant.

Today, CoVid-19 through CoVid-19, we can proudly assure that the Manousheria project has been a success, being echoed in the main magazines of the city thanks to the good work of an architectural firm, a restless client who knows his company and, above all, the joint work of studio and client.