dosa by DOSA brings the energetic warmth and spirit of Mumbai street food to the easy-going Uptown Oakland neighborhood. We took full advantage of high ceilings and abundant natural light in the century-old, brick-and-timber building at 2301 Broadway. Hand-crafted interpretations of traditional Indian elements play with new and old, developing an enduring design idiom for future dosa by DOSA locations.
Completed: December 2017
Location: Oakland, CA
Size: 3,530sqft
PROJECT TEAM:
General Contractor: Terra Nova Industries
Furnishings and Interiors Consultant: Anna Molina A2M Design
Kitchen Consultant: Nex Step Design and Nahum Goldberg Associates
Mechanical Engineer: MHC Engineers
Lighting Design: Melinda Morrison Lighting
Structural Engineer: Coffman Engineers
Restaurant & Brand Innovation Partner: IDEO
Photographer: Kassie Borreson
dosa by DOSA is street corner casual and quick. An all-day bar keeps the energy light and lively from breakfast through dinner. The open kitchen and its wood clad hearth showcase the handwork of creating fresh dosa. The vibrant colors and unconventional textures were chosen to complement, but not upstage the dynamic food. Highlighting the meeting of Oakland and Mumbai, two large mural walls commissioned from local artists transports the customer from Oakland to India and promises fresh discoveries with every family dinner, casual cocktail, or morning chai.
The experience at dosa by DOSA is guided by its architectural simplicity. Upon entering the space, the ‘unconventional bar’ to the right acts as the primary point of contact for customer and wait staff before maneuvering guests into the crosswise dining area. The architecture greets you and the focus was to make the space intuitive and give customers control over their own participation. Without a traditional hostess and wait staff, visitors are encouraged to navigate their own journey through the restaurant, instructed by its straightforward symmetry and design.
Beautiful, healthful, soulful spaces that inspire people and enhance our communities: those are the objectives of Feldman Architecture. In collaboration with our talented dosa team and aligned with our clients’ vision, this Uptown Oakland project’s resourceful design, fine materials, and thoughtful detailing make dosa by DOSA both journey and destination.
Feldman Architecture
Feldman Architecture is an innovative residential and commercial design practice recognized for creating warm, light-filled spaces that are site-sensitive and carefully detailed. Highly collaborative in nature, the firm approaches design as a dialogue between client, design team and site. Each project is an opportunity to create an innovative solution that is relevant to the project environs and tailored to a clients’ specific needs.
We are dedicated to creating buildings that sit gracefully and lightly on the earth: beautiful, healthful, and soulful spaces that enhance our clients’ lives, our communities, and the environment.
We work in conversation with clients and colleagues: listening without preconception, sharing visions and values, generating ideas and sifting possibilities together, finding a clear and compelling focus. This collaborative process helps us devise solutions that are responsive to program and context, sustainable, and elegant.
We take seriously our obligations and opportunities as architects to respect, and even restore, the natural environment. Drawing upon past wisdoms as well as contemporary building science, we aspire to create structures that conserve resources and that move architecture to ecologically and ethically responsible designs.
We believe in the importance of great design because we understand that the quality of architecture shapes the quality of life and that what we create can be meaningful for many generations.
