Studio X named, branded and designed Paper Lantern - a cocktail bar and outdoor cinema at UA Sha Tin.

Studio X was appointed to design a first-of-its-kind destination cocktail bar in Shatin - for the growing number of discerning professionals who had been commuting to Kowloon or Hong Kong Island to find an Old Fashioned or a small-batch G&T.

Process

Concept Design

Schematic Design

Detail Design

Tender Documentation

Tender Management

Construction Support

Post-Completion Review

The brief was a gap in the map rather than a site. The New Territories had the demographic but not the venue, and the commercial argument was simply that people were travelling an hour each way for a drink they should have been able to get locally. Our scope went beyond the interior. We developed the name, designed the space, and created a full suite of branded applications including menus and custom sugar syrup bottles. We also designed an outdoor cinema, so a guest could sit with a cocktail and a film - Humphrey and Ingrid included.

A combined ticketing and bar counter turns a functional cinema transaction into a more social, hospitality-led arrival experience.

A dramatic street-level portal creates a distinct threshold into Cloudgate, using a faceted illuminated entrance to signal the cinema and members’ club beyond.

Arrival at themembers’ club, bringing together reception, cocktail bar and lounge with the outdoor cinema beyond.

Naming the venue, designing the interior, drawing the menus and specifying the sugar syrup bottles. A brand does not stop at the door.

Selected views

Concept views of the bar, the outdoor cinema and the branded applications developed for the venue.

(Approach)A market with the customers but not the venue. Shatin professionals were commuting across the harbour for a decent drink.

Drawings & details

This section presents selected drawings and technical studies developed to test layout, circulation, and spatial logic prior to detailed documentation.

Planning diagram for Cloudgate Cinema, organising six screening rooms around a central arrival zone with integrated ticketing, refreshments, retail and circulation.

Rooftop planning for Cloudgate, combining a private members’ club, bar and lounge with an outdoor cinema and amphitheatre terrace.

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Section through the rooftop cinema, sequencing arrival, bar and lounge, landscaped terrace and stepped outdoor screening amphitheatre.

Brand and building drawn together, because in hospitality they are the same product.

A bar is one of the few briefs where the name, the menu, the glassware and the room have to be conceived as a single thing. A guest does not separate them. That is why the scope here ran from naming through interior design to printed and physical collateral, down to the custom sugar syrup bottles behind the bar. Studio X's involvement covered concept design. The scheme was not built. It is shown because it demonstrates a capability that a purely spatial portfolio hides: we can create a hospitality brand from nothing and then give it somewhere to live.