Ciclo Cafe:Hyderabad

Spread across 11000 sq ft and designed by Chennai-based Arvind Varuna Associates, Ciclo Café, a unique concept of cycle retail and F&B outlet, showcases the parts of a bicycle in the most unique ways.

The concept

Ciclo was started as a concept in JV with TI Absolute Concept, who globally holds 95% market share of cycle chain. Ciclo Café is a chain of café which also doubles up as cycle stores retailing 8-9 top brands of bicycles with presence in Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Bangalore. The chain plans to move to other cities like Pune etc and looking at 14-15 more outlets in next 3 years. Ashish Thadani, CEO, TI Absolute Concept, explained, “The concept is present in a few European countries. The café is designed in a way that every nook and corner reminds you of bicycle.”

Tale of pokes, chains and rims

The café infuses the rich history of cycles with generous use of cycle elements everywhere. The cycle chains make the chandeliers while the cycle rims make for lighting fixtures and front pokes of cycle double up as table tops. Varuna Arvind, the designer of the café said, “We went through a huge design process and interestingly, developed many elements at the TI cycle factory itself.”

The café uses cycle cranks, wheels and handles as props and padels as wall props and collage while main cycle bodies are used as table legs. Suspended lights used wheels with spokes as base while fabric draped around in the top finishes the fixture.

Vintage+contemporary

Ciclo opened its first door in Chennai, where the café is nestled in an old building. In the process of restoration, the design retained some age-old elements like athangudi tiles etc while the main design demanded the use of metal etc. “That’s where the concept of marrying vintage with contemporary kicked in. while developing the consecutive outlets, we added bright colours to connect to the young TG. To bring out the effect of these colours, the whole space used lot of textured linen.  We also did drama with the heights and forms of lights,” Arvind added.

To weave the rich history of cycle and cycling, a number of chalkboards, graphitis and pghotographs are used to denote the inspiration.

Design Highlights:

• A combination of vintage and    contemporary design
• The furniture, lighting fixtures, props,   bar facia etc are made from different   cycle parts
• To avoid the industrial feel, a number of   bright and pop-up colours are used.
• Some of the fixtures and props are    developed at the TI ct-ycle factory itself

Credits:

• Design: Arvind Varuna Associates
• Flooring and paints: Opal Flooring Pvt Ltd Varchas Foundation and Real Estate
• Vista & Metal Sheets paneling: Om Interiors
• Lighting: Vinayak Art & Craft Gulmohar Lane Kaiyaan Lighting Kesava Furnitures Motion Design Corp
• Sofas & Chairs: Mark Enterprises
• Photography: Focal Point