Project: Hammock, vegan hang out
Designer: Egue y Seta
Collaborators: Daniel Pérez, Felipe Araujo, Gaia Trotta, Szymon Keller y Covadonga Díaz
Location: Barcelona, Calle Mallorca
Completed date: 2016
Area: 150m2
Photographer: Vicugo Foto
Hammock, Vegan Hang Out in Barcelona is a project completed in 2016 by Spanish studio Eque y Seta.
Try feeling super stressed out while laying on hammock for a while: it is just impossible. Distracting gravity among plants and friends has nearly immediate positive effects on one´s mood and if, by any chance, you care to sprinkle it all with “spirulina”, cereals, chlorophyll and some other super trendy – super food, overall wellness and the healthy eater – environmentally friendly hipster image is 100% guaranteed. But don´t take it from us, try “hanging” at Hammock Juice Station (c/Mallorca 308), take a “selfie” while zipping the greenest of juices, post it to instagram and watch your follower and likes count rocket along with inmune defences and the antioxidants in your body. Once you thirst (for popularity?) has been quenched, stop showing off and let yourself enjoy: The place and the menu were designed for it.
Two patios of colourful single-person hammocks separated by a two-storey height grandstand under a vegetable curtain are faced with a set of circular wall-hung loungers and “face to face” double bicycles with a table (picture sharing a tandem bike in “missionary position” while having vegan tapas). Because in Hammock, “just plain sitting”, is not quite the “thing”. It is rather all about lying down, climbing, curling up, rocking or pedalling between natural fibbers and dyes, honest materials and rustic finishes.
The hammocks here are not exactly meant to be shared – although each can hold up to roughly 300kg – but everything else is: The 360 degrees of rotation allow the lady with the French Bulldog, talk to the guy in front, to the one next to him or the one at the back that at the higher level of the grandstand and behind the ivy leaves, is trying to pretend he is not totally checking out the girl in the denim shorts, whose legs – organically tanned to a carrot orange tone- are right now halving the “Anti-oxidant” iron ring floating over the “paint-free” brick wall, while she´s making her “crudi-bohemian” blog followers green with envy by describing such “entirely toxin free heaven” in her latest post.
Not everything in here, is however about neo-hippie good vibes, and since it is not necessary to be vegan to crave for freshness, hammocks can sometimes be all taken, bicycles all mounted and all rings filled with juice addicts zealously keeping their low tech swings to themselves. If you fail to find a spot or do not have enough time, do not give up the experience and give into the eco-booze: approach the industrial but vintage refrigerated cart, ask for a “Detox 6-pack” to go and run to nearest gym or neighbourhood park: Hammock´s packaging (the whole branding concept) is unmistakable and will surely give you something to brag about among the super fit crowd.
At an aesthetic level, just as it happens with fruit juices, Hammock’s interior design is all about natural and changing colour thanks to the dyed fibbers of the hammocks and all the hanging greenery that crowns the place; about contrasting textures that combine the roughness of the brick with the sheen of the naked iron or the transparency of the crystal; about a mixture of freshness and warmth in equal parts, provided by the polished cement finishes, the fabrics and the wood respectively; And last but not least, about a decided negation of the artifice that otherwise would have tried to “refine” all of the above under layers of synthetic lacquers and beams of multi-coloured light.
The latter, such as air conditioning or heating, sweeteners, preservatives or everything produced in series, is at odds with the “philosophy” of the owners, and if we see lamps, furniture and decorative elements of an industrial feel, It is just because these are exactly what one would find furnishing an authentic, old-school, handcrafted establishment, in the local market.
Hammock´s philosophy, why deny it, is currently trendy as hell and suspiciously “cool”. However, there is something undeniably good and eternally valid in that the earth has been producing by itself since the world got its name; And a hint of generous humbleness, not entirely deprived of wisdom, in its owners approach when decided to offer it to us, without any additives or filters, in the very heart of the city. At Egue y Seta we felt like “hang” with then and let ourselves be infected with their freshness … Do you feel like swinging with us?
