INS Studio Wraps a Maros Coffee Shop in Terracotta Lattice to Frame the Hills Beyond Makassar

Maros sits on the outskirts of Makassar, and its newer commercial districts look like most peri-urban growth across Indonesia: new plots, wide roads, parked cars, and a landscape that still dominates because the buildings have not yet filled in around it. Common Days Cafe, a 269 m² coffee shop by INS Studio in Kecamatan Turikale, takes that thin urban fabric as its brief. The lead architect is Wisnu Wardhana. Instead of competing with neighbours that barely exist yet, the building turns its attention to the light, the breeze and the distant hills.

The interesting part is not that the cafe uses brick and concrete. Half the coffee shops in the region do. What matters is how far INS Studio pushes a single element, the terracotta lattice. Here it works as facade, sunshade, ventilation device, privacy filter and view frame all at once. The result is a modest three-storey box that behaves more like a porous courtyard house than a roadside shop.

A Screen That Faces the Street

From the road the building reads as two clear layers. Below is a curved white tile canopy over a glazed storefront. Above is a terracotta lattice that steps back as it rises. The contrast is deliberate. The ground floor stays smooth, bright and legible as a shopfront, while the upper floors become a textured mass that catches the afternoon sun and breaks it into shadow.

The stepping lattice keeps the elevation from flattening into a billboard. In a district where every new building tends to shout for attention, this one earns its presence through depth and shade rather than signage.

Moss, Concrete and Filtered Light Inside

The ground floor dining room sets a living moss wall against the terracotta lattice. The pairing works because both surfaces are soft in different ways: one organic and damp, the other porous and dry. Exposed concrete ceilings and visible services keep the room honest, and a skylight washes daylight down a pale side wall so the deep plan does not go dim at its centre.

Timber chairs and woven stools pull the palette toward warmth without adding decoration. We like that the furniture never fights the walls. The material story is carried by the envelope, and the interior fit-out simply stays out of its way.

Edges Between Room and Courtyard

Much of the cafe's quality comes from thresholds. A long white table runs along a glass wall that looks onto a brick courtyard and terracotta screen, so you sit inside but read the space as outdoor. Elsewhere the terracotta blocks rise next to board-marked concrete, and the two surfaces set up a quiet dialogue of grain and shadow.

Seen through the lattice, the moss wall and tables beyond become layered and partly hidden. That partial concealment is the point. It gives a small cafe a sense of depth it would never have with plain glazing.

The Courtyard and Its Steel Stair

The vertical circulation is a black steel stair that cuts across a brick courtyard. It is the one lightweight, dark element in a heavy, warm composition, and it reads almost like furniture. Square brick columns frame it, broad-leaf planting softens it, and the lattice above throws dappled light across treads and paving through the late afternoon.

Putting the stair outside, in the courtyard, is a smart call for a tropical climate. Moving between floors becomes a short walk through shade and air instead of a trip through an enclosed core, and the stair doubles as a way to see the building from inside its own void.

Brick as a Light Instrument

Look closely and the brick is doing more than enclosing. Walkways and ledges take on moving patterns as sunlight passes through the perforated screens, and square shadows creep across terrace walls over the course of the day. The detailing stays restrained: a thin steel handrail meets the masonry corner cleanly, with no extra trim or fuss.

This is where the project feels most confident. INS Studio lets a common material and the equatorial sun create the atmosphere, rather than relying on finishes or lighting effects.

A Rooftop That Frames the Hills

The roof terrace is the payoff. Enclosed by terracotta lattice, it opens in one framed aperture toward the distant hills, and a brick frame around a planter of tall grasses does the same for the mountains. These are not panoramic views. They are edited ones, and that restraint makes the landscape feel more present, not less.

Looking up from the courtyard through breeze block walls and a lattice ceiling to open sky, you understand the building as a stack of filters. Each layer decides how much sun, air and view gets through.

Evening and the Quieter Rooms

At dusk the logic reverses. Warm uplights wash the brick columns, the glass-walled dining room glows into the courtyard, and the lattice that filtered sunlight by day now leaks light outward. A timber-lined meeting room on the upper floor offers a calmer counterpoint, with a window onto green fields that remind you how close the open landscape still is.

Plans and Drawings

The plans show a clear vertical split. The ground floor holds the coffee bar, kitchen, indoor seating and a prayer room, with parking for two cars at the front. The second floor adds more seating, the meeting room and a front balcony with a planter box. The third floor gives most of its area to a rooftop garden ringed by outdoor seating, with a glass block skylight bringing light down into the floors below. Including a prayer room on the main floor is a sensible, local piece of programming that many cafe designs leave out.

The sectional perspectives make the environmental intent explicit: sun paths and airflow arrows pass through the breeze block walls, across stacked floors and out through the rooftop terrace. The exploded axonometric ties it together, showing three floor plates threaded with vertical gardens. We would read these drawings as the design's thesis. The lattice is a climate device first and an image second.

Why This Project Matters

Peri-urban commercial strips across Southeast Asia are filling up with sealed, air-conditioned boxes that could sit anywhere. Common Days Cafe shows a small-budget alternative that is easy to copy: a masonry screen, an open courtyard, an external stair and a usable roof. None of these moves is exotic, but together they make a 269 m² cafe feel generous, shaded and connected to where it is.

It also takes the sparse context seriously. Instead of treating the empty plots and distant hills as a temporary condition to block out, INS Studio builds them into the experience. When the district densifies, the lattice and framed openings will still filter light and air. For now, they let a roadside coffee shop in Maros keep looking at the landscape it sits in.

Common Days Cafe by INS Studio (lead architect Wisnu Wardhana; design team Rima Pratiwi and Wina Syahrir; technical team Fauzi Surjan; general contractor Mata Ruang), Kecamatan Turikale, Maros, Indonesia. Area: 269 m². Completed 2025. Photography by Akasa Rana.

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