Circolo Restaurant, the precursor to Nicola, is in a new building that was almost medieval in its disorder and lack of control. The existing spaces were two shifted, rectilinear volumes, each punctuated by a large vertical space.  Geometric analysis of the building identified misalignments and offsets that we “corrected” by the placement of new elements that reconfigure the spaces.
 
The restaurant accommodates three types of Italian dining for three speeds:  a cafe bar and deli for espresso, snacks, and take-away, tavolo caldo (for pre-prepared food), and the trattoria, for the long meal. One of the tall spaces was to have a 30-ft.-high pizza altar, as a tribute to Carmine, a great chef in L.A in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
We chose wood for the primary material, and were inspired by the beauty of Russian wooden buildings, Japanese wooden temples, Scandinavian wooden boats, and unfinished wood-framed buildings. Working directly with a crew of craftsmen, we applied the following operations on the material: repetition, rotation, bending, shifting and extension. The simple device of points and lines was used to imply planes and volumes.