Archway Reveries

Located beside Longtan Lake in Taoyuan, this Italian restaurant is designed around the concept of “bringing the lakeside indoors and translating the feeling of travel into everyday life.” The space offers a retreat-like ambiance, allowing guests to momentarily escape their routines and immerse themselves in a foreign atmosphere. Expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, an outdoor courtyard, and low hedges define an open yet tranquil environment, evoking the freedom and openness of a vineyard estate abroad.

The building’s exterior with white paint and textured stucco conveys a bright Mediterranean character. At the entrance, patterned tiles spread across the floor and façade, complemented by curved circulation paths, arched walls, and wooden accents. These elements, drawing from Southern European and colonial architectural styles, are seamlessly blended into a relaxed yet evocative mix with a distinctly Western charm. This zone serves not only as the threshold to the interior, but also as a prelude that sets the mood for the restaurant experience.

Stepping inside, the existing structural columns are transformed into a sequence of arches, becoming the primary cues that define both zoning and visual direction. The contrast in lighting inside and outside the archway creates distinct spatial layers, from artificial illumination to natural daylight, revealing a main circulation path that gradually leads from the entrance toward the lake view.

The flooring materials further reinforce this sense of flow. Near the main door, a concrete finish that evokes exposed formwork sets a calm, grounded tone. After passing through the series of arches, the surface transitions into hexagonal wood tiles, bringing warmth and a sense of domesticity to the area adjacent to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The row of lake-facing floor-to-ceiling windows forms the visual soul of the space. Through generous openness and intentional restraint, the window frames become canvases, allowing the water, tree shadows, and shifting sky to act as natural ornamentation. Light continuously casts and reflects throughout the day, and after passing through the series of arches, it reveals a palpable sense of time in motion.