Westfield Century City Dining Terrace

Corsini Stark Architects was retained by Westfield Corp. to develop new branding, corporate identity, and architectural design for their Dining Terrace tenants — Cal Crisp, Red Rock Chili, Gulen’s Mediterranean, and Newsstand — at their North American flagship Century City mall. The Dining Terrace concept seeks to aesthetically elevate the quality of the dining experience at Century City and the specific restaurant designs establish a clear visual identity evocative of the foods served and their regions of origin. We designed new logos, signs, and menus in addition to architectural and lighting design to ensure an integrated brand identity for their clients.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Project Type
Food Court, Inline Quick-Service Restaurants and Newsstand
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2005
Size
3,500 sq. feet

Temple Restaurant

The original coffee shop was designed in 1956 by Armet and Davis for the Tiny Naylor’s chain. With the eye-catching kitsch modernism of the original long faded, we transformed the downtrodden Googie style eatery into a refined setting for a California take on Brazilian-Korean cuisine.

A guest approaches up a gentle ramp and under a luminous translucent canopy, arriving on-axis with the entry, crossing a bridge above a threshold of water, and arriving on a white interior surface. Dark wood furnishings and tan upholstery center the dining area. White random-mix mosaic tile, brushed aluminum, mirror, and floor-to-ceiling glass lighten the visual weight of volumes and surfaces, reflect light in different ways, and dissolve the distinction between interior and exterior space.

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INFORMATION
Project Type
Adaptive Reuse and Renovation
Location
Beverly Hills, CA
Status
Completed 2001
Size
2,000 sq. feet

Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza

A dynamic, stepped wood soffit moves through space to lead the traveler from the entry to the main dining area. Exhibition cooking, exposed to the busy Terminal 4 concourse, lends theatricality to the traveling and dining experience while heavy stone walls frame views from the concourse through the dining space to the runway. Tension is created between static, monolithic stone floors, walls, and counters and the light, dynamic wood soffit while walnut, glazed Japanese penny tile and Turkish seagrass limestone resonate with the texture and earthiness of the brand’s Mediterranean menu.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Client
Areas USA
Project Type
Airport Full-Service Restaurant, Bar
Location
Los Angeles International Airport, Terminal 4, Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2012
Size
2,100 sq. feet

Lemonade

Our design team utilized fluid, cursive-inspired forms to define space within a light-filled airport concourse, integrating space, form, and branding into a cohesive spatial and culinary experience. We transformed two-dimensional branding into architectural space-defining elements: a logo is enlarged, thickened, and repeated to create a patterned, permeable enclosure; a photo is abstracted by increasing its scale, blurring it, and installing it adjacent to a base-building mirror to create an illusion of infinite space and dappled sunlight. Light colors and materials create a contrapuntal frame for rich, earthy local cuisine, united by a perception of “freshness.”

CSA conceived and produced the citrus mural and branded signage for this project.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Client
Crews of California
Project Type
Airport Quick-Service Restaurant
Location
Los Angeles International Airport, Terminal 5, Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2012
Size
2,800 sq. feet

Jerry Remy’s Sports Bar & Grill

Jerry Remy’s Sports Bar and Grill is a full-service bar and restaurant and the first location for this new regional chain. CSA also developed Remy’s new graphic identity.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Project Type
Airport Full-Service Restaurant, Bar
Location
Logan International Airport, Terminal B, Boston, MA
Status
Completed 2007
Size
3,000 sq. feet

Ford’s Filling Station / L.A. Times Newsstand

Celebrity chef Ben Ford established Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City, where the gastropub became a cornerstone of the culinary scene from 2006 until its closing in 2014. The LAX design is founded in the original restaurant’s brand-driven ideals: handcrafted and earthy, straightforward yet sophisticated. Moving beyond the decorator-design approach for a design that is uncompromisingly contemporary, the material palette conveys organic warmth and closeness to the earth without defaulting to wood. Saddle-colored leather banquettes rest against olive-green penny round tile; rice paper-esque lights framed in shoji-like screens add an undertone of Japanese sensibility; and the tactile copper bar wears with every touch, growing softer with age.

Every element is sized in relation to the concourse: the primary sign is precisely located with its dimensions maximized between lease-line and column-visibility parameters to create a recognizable iconic marker that draws travelers from the Terminal 5 entrance tunnel up the ramp to the entrance, located on the far end of the lease space.

Ford’s Filling Station shares this entrance with the L.A. Times Newsstand, which takes the same cascaded-scale approach: different logos — one large, another sideways — sign the newsstand for clarity and legibility at every distance. The newsstand also features a touchscreen feed to the L.A. Times website, one of the first locations at LAX to utilize this technology.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Client
Areas USA
Project Type
Airport Full-Service Restaurant, Bar, Retail
Location
Los Angeles International Airport, Terminal 5, Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2013
Size
2,300 SF / 600 SF

Homeboy Café

The largest gang intervention program in the nation, Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and recently incarcerated men and women, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community. The model of job training combined with comprehensive wrap-around services, all in a community of acceptance and growth, creates a catalyst for change, leadership and hope.

Our design concept was to bring Los Angeles street art into the space. We created a neutral framework inspired by the tough materials of LA streets: ribbed concrete-colored tile and textured stainless steel. Homeboy Industries recommended Fabian Debora, their longtime counselor and artist, to create the ceiling mural ‘Inner Self Inner Voice.’

CSA developed and produced the signage and ‘About Homeboy’ graphic and facilitated construction of the ceiling mural.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Client
Areas USA
Project Type
Airport Coffee Bar
Location
Los Angeles International Airport, Terminal 4, Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2013
Size
1,100 sq. feet

Farmers Market LAX

The historic Farmers Market at Third Street and Fairfax Avenue has been a vital community meeting place for young and old since it began in 1934 as a collection of produce stands in a parking lot next to the old Gilmore Adobe. Its casual, congenial atmosphere is part of the collective memory of Los Angeles and many thousands of Angelenos’ daily lives. Its eclectic character is built by hundreds of small design decisions made by dozens of shopkeepers laid down, erased, and overlaid again and again over the years. Our design challenge was to capture this accretive energy and character in one design at one time by one design team. 

We divided the plan into three distinct layers: a front porch to welcome travelers into the space; a marketplace with custom-designed displays to showcase the diverse brands of the original Farmers Market; and a dining area furnished with custom chairs and tables inspired by the originals. The front porch is flanked by a large-format live-feed video from Third and Fairfax and a bas-relief of the Farmers Market iconic clock tower. A produce market and local brand coffee bar bookend the marketplace, and Monsieur Marcel French delicatessen and Lotería Bar and Grill frame the seating area.

We interpreted the humble, matter-of-fact finishes at the original Farmers Market into a palette of high-quality, precisely detailed materials suitable for a busy modern airport. We orchestrated signage, product display, branding elements and lighting to create clear sight lines and visual energy without visual clutter. CSA developed the entire graphic, branding, and merchandising concept for this project.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Client
Delaware North Companies
Project Type
Airport Food Court
Location
Los Angeles International Airport, Terminal 5, Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2013
Size
2,300 SF / 600 SF

Earthbar LAX

Earthbar is a rapidly growing, Los Angeles-based brand founded in 1971 and focused on improving wellness and health through juices, cleanses, vitamins and supplements. This location features the redesigned brand materials palette of neutral earth tones showcasing Earthbar’s colorful product line.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Client
Delaware North Companies
Project Type
Airport Juice Bar, Retail
Location
Los Angeles International Airport, Terminal 6, Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2016
Size
250 sq. feet
Award
Airport Revenue News  + USA TODAY’s “10 Best” Poll: Corsini Stark #4 and #1 for Lemonade and Earthbar. 

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

The free-standing pavilion in the arrivals concourse at Tom Bradley International Terminal is a new look for CBTL: solid oiled walnut, Carrara marble mosaic tile, brushed stainless steel and purple back-painted glass bring refined elegance to a robust brand. An abstract geometric pattern, reminiscent of Chinese window screens and paper prints, is incised on a solid walnut wall and continues as wood filigree to the trellis overhead. The overall effect can be read as a finely crafted Chinese jewel box or travel trunk and subtly alludes to the often under-appreciated tea offerings of the brand.

CATEGORY
INFORMATION
Client
Areas USA
Project Type
Airport Coffee Bar
Location
Los Angeles International Airport, Tom Bradley International Terminal, Los Angeles, CA
Status
Completed 2016
Size
250 sq. feet