Rag Café: RAL Plus’s Industrial Style Restaurant Concept

Set across two floors of a mixed use building, Rag Café is a restaurant and coffee shop designed by Cairo-based design studio RAL Plus with a clear industrial style that shifts in elements throughout its plethora of spaces and seating options. Four interconnected zones, a café and a bar positioned next to curtain walls were crafted to have a warm ambience that is exuded from the designers’ use of natural materials.

“The atmosphere is meant to encourage visitors to interact with the colour and feel of the materials we used,” Hussein Mansour, RAL Plus’s Design Director, tells #SceneHome. The studio’s principles revolve around exploring materials and innovative designs. Without any reservations about getting a bit chaotic as they turn their imaginations into physical forms. “Creating forms isn’t only about geometry but also instilling relationships to them.”

Naming spaces so that users build a stronger bond with their favourite spots, the designers used elements like steel structures and carved cylinders to make nuanced connections. In the ‘Waiting Corner’, they designed a pattern that appears to be in a spiral flow constantly connecting its carved protrusions. “The module was inspired by the shape of leaves blown by the wind,” Mansour explains. “While carving the pattern, shadows were created from the hidden lights on the corners that further sharpen the edges.”

“Design must seduce, shape and perhaps more importantly, evoke an emotional response,” Mansour continues. The ‘Black Box’ is a zone that was placed in the main corridor, with a volume that is connected using wooden segments. Defined as a cylinder made of wooden piles, the ‘Lounge Corner’ is but one of two main curved zones in the restaurant as the ‘Spiral Staircase’ acts as an attractive entrance to the restaurant and connects the two floors. As for the bar, well, they gave it a cosy ambience as all bars should have.