MIX IT UP

SET IN A TRADITIONAL SHOPHOUSE, THIS MEXICAN AND JAPANESE FUSION RESTAURANT CONCEPTUALISED BY OWIU DESIGN COMBINES ELEMENTS INSPIRED BY BOTH CULTURES.

- SASHA GONZALES

The design brief for Singapore’s new Japanese-Mexican restaurant sounded exciting: To create an evolved, modern yet industrial aesthetic that encourages and evokes a lifestyle of dining and interaction.

Opened in November 2021, Mezcla is all that, and more.

Located in a restored shophouse on Craig Road in Tanjong Pagar, the 66-seat venue harmoniously merges Mexican and Japanese interior design schemes, creating a festive, trendy and iconic space for diners to eat, drink and relax.

Joel Wong and Amanda Gunawan, both designers and Founding Principals of Singapore- and Los Angeles-based OWIU Studio, collaborated with the Singapore architecture firm ADDP Architects to bring the brief to life.

CHIC, CARNIVAL-THEMED

The starting point was the walls of the shophouse, where they created a raw terracotta look reminiscent of those in Mexican haciendas (houses).

Says Wong, “We first chipped away at the brick, making sure that we didn’t affect the structural integrity of the walls; our goal was to create a more tactile aesthetic.

“Next, we applied a textured paint in burnt terracotta.

“In deciding on the dark orange shade, we were inspired by Luis Barragan, a Mexican architect whom we love and who was known for not being afraid to use colour.”

The effect were not something that Wong and Gunawan had tried before; it was also an unusual treatment.

“Most designers use wallpaper or synthetic tiles, but we managed to employ a material reduction technique to get our desired look,” he points out.