The Solar Cafe

With a limited budget and narrow timeframe, I was asked to develop a redesign for the museum cafe at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California. I proposed the new design as a "sister-space" to Touch the Sun, a popular exhibit adjacent to the existing cafe. The goal of the design was to create a warm and inviting space with bold colors. I purchased bright orange chairs and applied vinyl letters to the back of each chair. The words referenced the Sun in a fun, whimsical way. For the large array of windows, I abstracted an image of a solar flair from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. I reproduced the image onto transparency film and applied it directly to the glass. The film allowed natural sunlight to pass through the glass and illuminate the design while the vibrant colors reflected throughout the room. This design carried over to the table tops with an added 'solar fun fact' circling the top edge, also in a vinyl application. The adjacent wall was painted with a specific blue tone, and I applied 6-word memoirs about the Sun in large, bold colored vinyl letters.