COVID-19 has caused suspension of many businesses in Hong Kong. A large portion of visually impaired persons working as masseurs encountered severe reduction in working hours and unemployment as their industry faced frequent lockdowns and reduced customers.

Therefore, Our client Blind Union launched “Better Tomorrow Massage Coupon” in April 2020 in order to help a group of visually impaired masseurs with urgent financial security. With the sponsorhip sought from Social Welfare Department, the first social enterprise cafe combining massage and coffee has been established in Summer 2021.

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Designed to deliver a calm and relax atmosphere for its customers, light tone texture paint and a timber structure installation are combined with subtle, yet eye-catching floor pattern with concrete and aged brass, to carve out and emphasize the volume of the interior.

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To enjoy massage, a higher level privacy is expected from customers. But it seems to be contradict to another function of this space: cafe activities, which tends to be more public and open.  In order to solve these 2 different privacy zones, a big wooden tea house is designed for massage activite, with movable wooden-panels installed in-between to sub-divide into 3 box spaces. Each of such space can be separated from the cafe space by translucent cloth curtain, which allow certainly privacy inside the box but also keep spatially connecting to the main dining space.   If the Tea House is totally opened up, it can function as a flexible space for small stage for small performance, exhibition or a lift-up reading space, etc.

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