Mexico-based Worc Studio drew on family traditions and shared experiences at Mexico City’s Savia, setting up a circular communal table inside a historic building in the city center.
The 153-square-meter (1,646-square-foot) restaurant is housed in a mid-20th-century residential Humboldt building in Centro Histórico. .
The studio said the structure’s exposed concrete opened up possibilities for adaptive reuse within the modest architecture.
Regarding the construction of the interior, the study referred to the historical “act of sharing” and the genealogy of food as main themes.
“This architecture responds to the act of sharing, drawing inspiration from our own family stories and the way food brings people together across time and generations.” work studioa training facility based in Mexico City and Madrid, run by Ricardo Martinez and Camila Ureña.
WORC Studio opened the ground floor restaurant to the street so that the “texture of the city” could play a role in the plan.
“Large openings to the exterior allow urban textures, light and sounds to enter softly, and the material palette reflects the soothing tones of the surroundings,” the studio says. “It is both an extension of the city and a refuge from it, a dialogue between the intimacy of the interior and the vitality of the exterior.”
The main room is focused on a large red stone table placed in the center of the space.
The studio said it was “both sculptural and symbolic.” “The table becomes the origin and organizing element of the project, around which sights, gestures and stories gather.”
To place the act of hospitality at the heart of the restaurant, we raised the kitchen to the second floor, freeing up the ground floor for dining, interaction, visibility and movement, inverting the restaurant’s usual spatial logic.
The studio says the materials are tactile and stimulating. “All materials support the concepts of containment, hospitality and memory.”
Stone forms the table and vertical elements, grounding the space and giving it a ceremonial feel, while brass wall details and metal lights create a sophisticated contrast.
Wood, stoneware and lighting add intimacy to the space.
“The biggest challenge was to strike a balance between respect and transformation, intervening in a building with memory without erasing its tranquility,” said the studio.
“Every adjustment required precision, whether it was lifting the kitchen, hanging a light ring, or placing a monumental table on the ground. Each movement had to feel inevitable, as if the space had always been waiting for it.”
The studio said atmosphere plays a role in connecting people to a space.
“Savia has reminded us that the most powerful designs emerge when architecture becomes almost invisible and only presence remains,” the studio said.
Founded in 2022, Worc previously designed two boba tea shops in Mexico City, one with a luminous polycarbonate interior and the other arranged around a translucent tube.
The shooting is Zykes Shrike.
Project credits:
Architecture: WORC Ricardo Martinez + Camila Ureña
Collaborators: Ricardo Martinez, Camila Ureña, Isabel Ortega, Alejandra Magdaleno, Jimena Uribe
Lit: Noonbla, David Pompa, Primitivo
Surface treatment: Corev, interceramic
furniture: betta, cacao