Milky’s officially opened their second location, Cloud Room, on October 10th, 2021 in a shipping container at Stackt Market in Toronto, Canada. Embracing slow coffee, the new location features dynamically changing lights and a brew bar for making hand made coffee and tea.
The space
Cloud Room earns its name from moving light that collects shadows in the three dimensional travertine pattern covering the walls and ceiling, The effect mimics the shadows of moving clouds across the wall. Light moves at a very slow pace; imperceptible when stared at, but noticeable over the time it takes to order and make a coffee.
Milky’s Cloud Room was designed and built by newly founded Full Fat Studio. Developed from the architectural language and graphic patterning created for Milky's by Batay-Csorba Architects, Cloud Room achieves a familiar, yet new feeling. Changes in material, colour, pattern, and details create two distinct spaces.
The entire interior was custom designed and fabricated to outfit the interior of a container. The travertine walls and ceiling were machine sculpted by Marbela. Anony designed intelligent light fixtures to control the ambiance and create the cloud effect. Other fixtures, such as fibre-optic counter lights, were customized to suit the space. A miniature sized herringbone wood from Relative Space covers the floor.
“We wanted the second location to be distinctly Milky’s, while having its own personality. Slow coffee was an appealing concept, so we started thinking about how to create a space for slowness,” said Fraser Greenberg, founder of Milky’s and partner at Full Fat Design. “Stone was our material choice, because of its age and solemness. Clouds were our concept because of their speed and unpredictability.”
The concept
“At Milky’s D*ndas, our initial thought was how we could use someone’s morning coffee routine as an opportunity to put them in a good mood. At Cloud Room, we started with how it's an opportunity to slow down and appreciate the moment,” said Greenberg.
The idea that everything surrounding the offering is as important as the product – from presentation to hospitality – has helped shape the concept of Milky’s Cloud Room. Thoughtful design is everywhere in the space, from the narrow colour palette to the unique cups used for each drink, all to create a space that slows down time.
