We all have “a-ha!” moments when it becomes clear how we’re going to overcome what sometimes seem like impossible challenges. For Blake Ryan, everything became clear during a visit to a coffee roasting facility.
"There's a quality and beauty that you find in the shop that you can find in these people. There's a roughness to the look; there's a roughness to the people that we're working with. We want that story to ring true...."
—BLAKE RYAN, PlainJoe Studios, Corona, CA.
As volunteer director of the Corona Norco Rescue Mission in Corona, Calif., Ryan’s challenge was to help the homeless in a meaningful way. As principal at PlainJoe Studios, a design firm also based in Corona, his aim was to build a facility that would serve as the vehicle through which the program’s homeless––“students” in the rescue mission’s language––would gain the tools to rediscover their value, and reintegrate into society.
At Rabih Sater’s specialty coffeehouse, Dripp, in Chino Hills, Calif., Ryan’s “a-ha!” moment produced a number of connections: Coffee must go through a transformation––a restoration––before we consume it, much like people must transform and restore themselves in order to recover from trauma and construct healthy, fulfilling lives. Coffee in general––and specialty coffee in particular––is a hot commodity in the U.S., requiring skilled baristas to process and serve it the way it was intended to be consumed. One of the most meaningful ways to help the homeless is to provide vocational training that actually positions them for employment. And hey, if they’re trained as baristas, rather than just glorified coffee-pourers, there’s a chance they’ll be positioned to earn a bit more than the average server in a diner. And thus, Restoration Roasters was born.Housed in the old nursery on the Crossroads Christian Church campus in Corona, Restoration Roasters is a specialty coffeehouse that enables students in the Corona Norco Rescue Mission’s program to acquire training not only as baristas and customer service reps, but also in business operations. One hundred percent of the café’s net proceeds are funneled back into the rescue mission. The design for this adaptive re-use project was a collaboration between PlainJoe and Visioneering Studios, the latter based in Irvine, Calif.
PlainJoe’s work spans strategic ideation (branding), interactive media (the expression of that branding, be it through websites, graphics, logos, or multimedia), and environmental design. Ryan explains that storytelling is at the core at the firm’s design philosophy; for Restoration Roasters, the story that’s being told is one of restoration. “When we think of something that’s been restored, we feel like it’s lost value––that thing was new, became old, and lost value, and somebody’s bringing value back to it. The reality is the value was always there, it just needed to be brought back out,” Ryan says. “At Restoration Roasters, these people are valued. They have value, they’re incredible people––it’s not like they lost their value along the way; they just needed somebody to come alongside them and bring it back out.” To express this in the facility’s design, PlainJoe and Visioneering selected reclaimed materials such as wood, brick, galvanized pipe, and other metals, for the walls, floors, and ceilings.
“There’s a quality and beauty that you find in the shop that you can find in these people. There’s a roughness to the look; there’s a roughness to the people that we’re working with. We want that story to ring true, not only in how we express it in words, but also in how you find yourself being immersed in it.”
“Really all of the materials are real materials that have been repurposed, reused, regained, reclaimed, and that was certainly a key part of the design,” says Mel McGowan, founder and president at Visioneering Studios at the time of this project. He explains that the existing space was built on a pre-engineered steel structure, which was fairly generic. “We wanted to create a space that had texture and patina, and a sense of permanence.”This design philosophy extended to the furniture, fixtures, and equipment, with metal seating, wooden tabletops trimmed in metal, and industrial-style lighting, all complimented by the warm, earthy tones of the brick walls and the reclaimed floorboards that enclose the upper portion of the coffee bar. “We wanted to use a lot of different types of textures and as many things that had been discarded as possible to make these really unique, beautiful pieces that could be incorporated into the story, and into the overall design direction,” explains Danae Ledgerwood, studio director at Visioneering. She notes that many of the pieces were custom-designed or refurbished.
McGowan points out that Restoration Roasters also serves as a central meeting point in Crossroad Christian Church’s extensive campus, which places an emphasis on being a community presence 24 hours a day, seven days a week, rather than something that is only alive and bustling during weekend services. The café anchors Candlewalk, an indoor/outdoor area designed by Visioneering, with exterior seating, a “light tower,” and a circular, elevated plaza overlooking the landscape. A cobblestone courtyard, waterfall, and the terrace above it give the exterior setting a Mediterranean feel, and can be used for special events and performances.
In designing a space that’s intended for the community, it’s necessary for designers to consider the community––and therefore the story, and storytelling, that goes along with it, Ledgerwood reflects. “I think it’s really easy, as designers, to just pick things we like that are cool, and that people can relate to,” she says. “I think what makes it different is when you have a vision or a narrative or a story that is activated by the design, rather than just having a place that doesn’t necessarily convey a story––it just has a certain vibe.” The over-arching narrative, she says, helps to establish how the design can reinforce and support the story, rather than overshadow it. “That is usually the springboard for us when we think about the design. It’s always to support the bigger narrative, which is what the vision of the church, or the particular establishment, is, and how they’re trying to reach the community. Although ultimately, we want to make sure that the design is compelling and interesting in itself, too, but all of these projects are so unique, because each story is different. And using that as a way to springboard the design has been the best approach for us.” Blake Ryan, principal at PlainJoe Studios and founder of Restoration Roasters in Corona, Calif., says that while crowd-sourced funding proved a viable source of financing for this project, it should remain only one of several ways for organizations to raise funds.
“To be honest with you, if we would have relied just on crowd-sourced funding as our only avenue to raise funds for Restoration Roasters, we would not have been what I would consider fully successful in that endeavor,” he explains. “It can be fairly limiting, because not only are you trying to raise money, but at the same time you are trying to find those people who are going to see that video, who are then going to be compelled to give. You’re doing two things at once.” For faith-based organizations, he believes it’s best to approach people on a number of different platforms. “If you’re doing a building campaign, using crowd-sourced funding is one avenue of multiple avenues you would want to leverage in trying to raise money. People may argue with me, but I’d be a little skeptical that [crowd-sourced funding] should be the only vehicle that one uses to try to raise funds for something.”
[Editor's note: This piece was originally published in 2017.]
Restoration Roasters' Equipment List
