Arquet by Studio KDA

This waterfront restaurant project presented a rare design challenge: to honor the legacy of an iconic dining destination within the historic Ferry Building while boldly reimagining it for a new culinary era. Innovation meant rethinking how architecture, craft, and sensory experience could express a chef’s singular vision.

The produce-driven cuisine became the conceptual anchor. Rather than a conventional renovation, the team layered global influences (Japanese restraint and Nordic minimalism) filtered through a Californian sensibility. The quiet material palette frames the waterfront drama without competing with it, creating conditions for genuine emotional depth over spectacle.

A ceiling of printed acoustic felt absorbs sound and renders the space visually, aurally, and atmospherically. The open kitchen, repositioned at the heart of the space, dissolves boundaries between kitchen, dining room, and waterfront. Arquet does not simply occupy its iconic site—it listens to it.