(via) We know it’s insane to imagine a sleek, modern Vancouver cafe taking up as much square footage as Connel Coffee does in Japan, but this column is not about what’s practical or possible. It’s about fantasy. Thus, we give over to the stylings of Toronto-born Oki Sato, who starkly designed the new cafe on the 2nd floor of Tokyo’s storied modernist building, the Sogetsu Kaikan (designed by Tange Kenzo in 1958), so as to reveal/amplify the original bones of the sprawling space (walls and mirrored ceilings are original – only the floors and furnishings have been redesigned). We especially dig how it looks out onto serene parklands, divorcing it even further from the nervy product Connel Coffee serves. Seeing something similarly sleek in Vancouver would be a welcome departure from the predominant modern-meets-industrial aesthetic of the new wave of local coffee joints. We’ll take ours (black, with a little sugar) in the new Vancouver Art Gallery envisioned by Herzog and de Meuron. Note: those black chairs? Original tulips by Eero Saarinen (designed for the Knoll Company in New York in 1956). How about that?