A Japanese restaurant brand from Kazakhstan asked me to design the decor for the summer terrace of their second venue in Almaty. I had already worked with them on the interior, so the concept came quickly. The scope was clear: a seating plan for the terrace, custom furniture and upholstery, a colour palette drawn from the brand's own colours, and planting developed together with a landscape designer.
Seating plan and 3D layout
Every decor project starts with the furniture layout. Before deciding anything else, I need to know where people sit, how they move between tables and what they see from each seat. To test the arrangement quickly I built a simple 3D sketch — not a rendering, just enough to check the proportions in space. Once the seating was settled, I moved on to the planting plan.
Planting and landscape design
I selected the plants and flowers together with a landscape designer, working within the conditions the restaurant team could realistically maintain. On a terrace this matters more than it sounds: greenery that needs constant attention looks neglected within a month, and a neglected terrace reads as a neglected restaurant.
Custom furniture, upholstery and colour palette
I built the palette from the brand's own colours rather than around them, so the terrace reads as the same restaurant the moment you walk up to it. The furniture was designed for the space and made to order. Every element — the upholstery, the joinery, the handcrafted details — was drawn, specified and checked in production, because outdoor furniture has nowhere to hide: it is seen from every angle and in full daylight.
Opening night: MANGA STREET 94
The brand opened the season with an event on the new terrace. Event's art direction by DAGE team
A terrace is a room without walls. Everything architecture would normally do — define the zones, set the mood, hold the eye — has to be done by furniture, textiles and planting alone. That is what makes a commercial terrace closer to set design than to interior decoration.
