Project name: FAB Restaurant
Interior design: SEEU Collective
Location: Zelenogradsk, Russia
Photo credit: SEEU Collective
Year: 2025
Project description from design firms SEEU Collective
FAB is located in Zelenogradsk, on the first line of the Baltic Sea, and its panoramic glazing creates an open visual dialogue between the restaurant, the promenade, and the horizon. We completely reimagined the existing space, uniting the interior and terrace into a cohesive architectural composition. The core concept is rooted in the industrial aesthetics of brewing: the FAB team owns a full-cycle brewery, and this production culture became the architectural code of the project.
The central element of the interior is a glass cold room filled with kegs and equipment. It functions both as a technical unit and a sculptural object, flooding the space with deep red light in the evening.
The interior composition is built on contrasts of concrete, metal, and crafted details. One of the key features is the long communal table assembled from green tiles sourced from old German stoves and houses across the Kaliningrad region. Floor inlays are made of industrial metal tiles integrated into the concrete, recalling the textures of old factory hangars.
The transition to the kitchen is designed as an independent industrial node — a metal structure with a suspended sink and mirror that highlights the production character of the interior. In the restrooms, we preserved the concrete walls and clad part of the surfaces with old German tiles salvaged from an abandoned military site. This find strengthened the sense of locality and added a layer of authentic historic texture.
Furniture plays a significant role in the project: we combined vintage pieces with products from small Russian manufacturers, preserving a handmade, crafted character. Even on the terrace we used designer outdoor chairs rather than budget street furniture, keeping the visual integrity of the project consistent inside and out. Fragments of vintage tableware were integrated into the communal table’s surface, adding honesty and a domestic warmth to the interior.
To soften the industrial mood, we designed flip-flop panels that shift color depending on the angle of view, as well as curtains with graphic prints that act as artistic accents. Another notable detail is the concrete cat sculptures — introduced in response to a local urban requirement. Zelenogradsk is a city symbolically devoted to cats, and we incorporated this identity into the project through two sculptural objects.
The terrace is centered around an idea of natural expression, conceptually inspired by hop culture. Its main architectural feature is a pergola resting on massive timber logs up to 60 cm in diameter — each log selected manually at a Kaliningrad sawmill. The irregular geometry required an unconventional fixing method: we used an old Russian technique of joining logs with metal staples, which ensured structural stability and gave the terrace its distinctive character.
Outdoors, a dedicated bar counter serves the brewery’s own beer, and a social bench — oriented directly toward the sea — quickly became a favorite spot among locals and visitors. The terrace is filled with timber, large plants, greenery, and natural materials, creating the feeling of a small park by the water. The pergola structure is made of aluminum — a choice dictated by the aggressive coastal environment, where salt, humidity, and wind demand highly resistant materials.
In the evening, soft terrace lighting, the red glow of the cold room, and reflections of the sea merge into a unified atmosphere. FAB has become a place where industrial character, local history, natural tactility, and architecture come together in a strong and expressive identity.
