Rice & Bones from Concrete to Culinary

This project was executed by Caroline Nassif while she was a Project Architect at Lundberg Design. As Project Architect, Caroline spearheaded the design, documentation, materials selection, and construction administration for the project.

(BERKELEY, CA | 2017)

Rice and Bones was a renovation of a cavernous concrete-clad café space located on the ground floor of Wurster Hall, home to UC Berkeley’s architecture school. This fast-casual Vietnamese restaurant was the creation of chef Charles Phan, founder of the Slanted Door restaurant group. A former Architecture student who spent many days and nights inside the building, Phan sought to create a budget-friendly version of his famous Vietnamese cuisine for university students and faculty, and the name “Rice & Bones” reflects his desire to highlight two of the humble food staples that underlie many Asian dishes. 

Because we could not alter the famous Brutalist concrete façade of the building, we installed a reclaimed channel glass wall, backlit by dimmable warm LED lights which cast a soft glow that could be adjusted based on the time of day, to create an artificial “window” wall on the interior. The open kitchen design with blackened steel and white marble island functions as a contrasting focal point that adds liveliness and a sense of culinary theater  to the space.