2nd Annual Sprudge Design Awards Semi-Finalists: Outstanding Design Achievement, Café / Roasting Facility

Spectracolor Coffee

Spectracolor Coffee Roaster’s buildout ideally expresses the brand’s obsession with mood and vibe, and how those feelings can be enhanced by color and ambiance. Our customers feel as if they’re stepping into a fever dream of emotion, memory, delight, and energy (whether that’s take-on-the-world or contemplate-the-world). The 1970s wall decor and furniture exude playfulness and comfort, while the clean and modern lines both complement and draw attention to the industrial origin of the building we’re in, which was originally an 1800s-era silk mill with large windows, thick brick walls, tin ceilings, and heavy machinery such as winches and chain-operated conveyances (remnants of which can be spotted by attentive customers). Most of the furniture is low and comfortable, to evoke the feel of those grungy 1990s coffee shops filled with cozy, oversize-furniture.

A massive magazine rack, stocked with an eclectic assortment of lush, obscure and eclectic titles, hearkens back to analog pleasures. Most of the pieces and materials were sourced from flea markets, vintage shops, and local basements and estate sales, which not only makes the cafe feel unique but leads each of our customers to gravitate toward some specific, quirky spatial experience that has meaning especially for them. Some examples: Our padded booth seats were rescued from a neighborhood barbershop; a local woodworker constructed the magazine stand; the counter facade is made with glass blocks picked from a local salvage yard. Overall, the design means that Spectracolor is not only a refuge, as any coffee shop should be, but a very personal reflector and amplifier of each of our customer’s moods.