Tanatap Ring Garden Coffee Shop by RAD+ar

A Green Oasis in Jakarta: Ring Garden Café

Tanatap Ring Garden Coffee Shop, designed by RAD+ar, is a pioneering example of sustainable tropical architecture in Indonesia. This unique café redefines the relationship between built form and landscape by integrating multi-leveled green spaces with functional commercial areas. Its innovative design creates a walkable roofscape with dynamic platforms that rise and fall, forming a series of floating amphitheaters surrounded by lush tropical gardens.

Concept: Disappearing Indoor Space

The concept behind Tanatap Ring Garden began with a simple yet powerful question: What if a building acted solely as an envelope for an open garden? The design demonstrates indoor spaces that fade into the garden, creating sequential experiences rather than predetermined rooms. Central to the project is the idea of playful togetherness, offering a dynamic civic space that is both social and sustainable, especially in developing urban environments like Jakarta.

Architectural Strategies

RAD+ar employed three key strategies to merge café functionality with natural surroundings:

1. Tree-Connected Circulation: Visitors move along pathways integrated with existing trees, creating a seamless connection with nature.
2. Intimate Underground Spaces: The main entrance features smaller, enclosed areas for private and reflective experiences.
3. Dynamic Spatial Contrast: Variations in scale, color, density of vegetation, and natural light introduce a sense of discovery, guiding visitors through concealed doors toward open garden areas.

These strategies ensure the café blends harmoniously with the tropical landscape while offering a versatile social experience.

Experimental User-Centered Design

Tanatap Ring Garden also functions as a social experiment, observing how users define comfort in spaces that challenge conventional hierarchies. Furniture is subtly integrated into the landscape, encouraging visitors to interact, adapt, and redefine the café’s spaces over time. This approach reflects the architects’ interest in understanding behavioral patterns in open, public environments.

Visitor Experience

Guests enter via a pathway bridge connecting two mature trees, blurring the boundary between indoor and outdoor spaces. Concealed skylights offer glimpses of garden activity above, while concentric spaces with a central coffee bar branch into two additional areas with increasing natural light. The journey culminates in a multi-leveled tropical garden, inviting visitors to explore and engage with nature fully.

On the upper level, the ring garden serves as a transitional space between city and landscape. Sculptural forms punctuate the horizon like a skyline, while the interplay of color and light draws visitors into the sensual beauty of the tropical environment.

Materials & Sustainability

The café’s envelope is crafted from glass blocks, blurring the line between building and garden. The structure offers privacy while maximizing natural light, giving the impression of floating heavy materials that scatter throughout the garden.

Inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, RAD+ar embraced this moment to demonstrate sustainable outdoor commercial spaces. Tanatap Ring Garden exemplifies how tropical architecture can harmonize sustainability with commercial viability, offering a model for future urban developments in Indonesia and beyond.