De Beauvoir Block: Sella Concept

It was almost a year ago since Zetteler moved into De Beauvoir Block in Hackney. Ever since that crisp November moving day, we’ve immediately felt right at home. An expertly-designed café opening on our doorstep is the cherry on the cake.

De Beauvoir Block officially opened in October 2017. A restored Edwardian industrial building in the heart of Hackney’s De Beauvoir Town, the block currently houses a hearty assortment of creative businesses. Right at the very top of the building, amid a small rainforest of foliage, you’ll find team Zetteler.

Thanks to London-based design studio Sella Concept, the block now houses a beautifully designed café, boardroom and co-working space. Run by De Beauvoir Deli, the café boasts plaster-pink brickwork, smooth concrete floors, fresh colour accents and an abundance of greenery. Around a central bar sits an assortment of long wooden tables coupled with early 20th-century plantation chairs. Plump sofas create a more laid back atmosphere while the bistro-esque dining areas makes the space perfect for a lunch meeting. It is these features that give the space a unique flexibility – as suited to slumping on the sofa with a magazine as it is to a lunch meeting or after-work drinks.

“We spend most of our days at work, so it seems crucial to develop a space that calls upon your various moods at different points of the day –  particularly in creative industries, where a shift in your environment can take you to a more inspiring headspace,” says Tatjana von Stein, co-founder of Sella Concept.

Sella Concept is a stickler for detail and several of the café’s main features – the elongated tables topped with raw-edged slabs of wood, the circular wooden reception desk, the banquette seating, and the main bar – are all bespoke designs.

Lighting has been carefully considered to complement the natural light that floods in through huge warehouse windows on either side of the room. Little Darling lamps by Swedish Ninja line the window counters; pendants from Bert Frank and Niclas Hoflin illuminate the tables; and the bookcases, stacked with books from the Serpentine Gallery, are illuminated by George Nelson’s Bubble Lights.

For the artwork, Sella Concept commissioned graphic artist Emily Forgot to create a series of wooden assemblages and collages that capture both the architecture and culture fabric of the building.

It also makes a mean jacket potato…

Hungry for more? Read our interview with the space makers, Sella Concept.