SABI Sounds (Interior)
A home for music lovers, culture seekers — café roamers & nightingales.
A Full-Service Branding & Interior
Strategy, Branding, Collateral, Interior Design, Graphics Package, Website, Marketing
BRIEF
SABI is a love letter to the quiet rituals that shape a day, where coffee, sound, and conversation unfold at their own pace. Conceived as a day-to-night listening café and record bar in Melbourne, the venue draws from the Japanese philosophy of “sabi”, the beauty that emerges with time, wear, and memory. By morning, SABI moves gently. Specialty ONA coffee, matcha, and delicate baked goods are served alongside the soft crackle of vinyl creating a calm atmosphere. As the day stretches into evening, the tempo shifts. Highballs are poured, the lighting deepens, and the room leans into a more intimate vibe. SABI exists for those who find pleasure in the in-between moments, where nothing is rushed, and everything is felt.
CONCEPT APPROACH
With an approach rooted in transition and restraint, the design balances Japanese minimalism with a distinctly Melbourne sensibility. It is not about contrast, but about quiet evolution. Materials, light, and sound are layered to create a space that changes over time. Rich warm walnut timber, brushed stainless steel, and velvet burgundy upholstery establish a homely, calm foundation. The record library becomes both feature and function, anchoring the space as a place of discovery, interaction, and pause. We collaborated with talented local artist Nani Puspasari, whose hand-painted, intuitive drawings are woven throughout the space, a raw and personal layer that reflects SABI’s spirit while championing homegrown creative talent. SABI is less a fixed environment and more a living space, shaped by the people within it, the music that fills it, and the passing of the day.
CHALLENGES
The primary challenge lay in bridging two distinct yet interconnected worlds. At the front, an open and welcoming café grounded in light, clarity, and daytime ritual. At the secret rear, the deeply atmospheric Bar Selecta, where sound is immersive and the mood more hedonistic. The design needed to create cohesion without dilution. SABI required its own identity, lighter, softer, more introspective, while still feeling linked to the richness and depth of the back bar beyond. Spatially, this meant crafting a transition that feels instinctive rather than forced. Guests move fluidly between spaces, from coffee to cocktails, from daylight to dusk, without a clear boundary, only a subtle shift in energy. Acoustically, the café demanded balance, warm enough to support vinyl listening, yet restrained enough to preserve the purity of the hi-fi experience beyond.
OUTCOME
The result is a space that feels like you are hanging out at your friends, refined yet relaxed. By day, SABI reads as a sunlit retreat, where soft light washes over timber surfaces and the rhythm of the room remains slow and deliberate. As evening settles, the atmosphere tightens. Light lowers and the space takes on a more intimate, almost cinematic quality. Moments of detail reveal themselves over time such as the subtle movement within the texture of the venetian style counter. The grain of veneer deepens, the quiet sheen of steel catching low light, the subtle choreography between sound and space. Nothing feels overworked, yet everything is very much intentional.
