For AUM, their Indian-inspired restaurant and bar, entrepreneurs Lucka Whahba and Maxime Gillet didn’t just ask WeWantMore to design a restaurant and brand identity. They wanted to create a whole new dimension with its very own rituals, people and practices. An experience set in the here and now. A place where you won’t be disturbed by worries about the past and future.
When you take your first steps into AUM, you’ll be welcomed by warm light, rich scents and thoughtful details. Its one-of-a-kind location on the ground floor of the Quatre Bras Tower, just outside the center of Brussels, invites everyone to fully immerse themselves in the moment.
“We designed AUM as a full-fledged international experience that aims to bring visitors into an engaging, oriental-infused world of its own,” Ruud Belmans, Creative Director at WeWantMore explains. “Both the interior design and branding are conceived around the central idea of AUM as a place to enjoy the here and now, in every single moment of the journey, throughout dinner and nightly dance moves.”
AUM is a sacred sound. A meditative mantra. In line with this thought, there’s a deep mental involvement in anything AUM offers guests. AUM is designed to be heard, smelled, tasted and touched. The variety of fabrics, textures and materials in each area all stimulate the senses in a different way. While you’re having dinner, the intimate light setting puts different, intriguing details of the interior design forward.
“Everything is designed to enhance the changing atmosphere during the evening,” Belmans continues. “The parametric ceiling with a lotus pattern forms a mirrored showpiece in the center of the room and reflects the atmosphere, colors and dynamic of the evening. Guests are constantly discovering new details, such as the AUM symbols incorporated in glass, the luxurious upholstery and stitching, table tops with marquetry and even more AUM symbolism that becomes visible later in the evening through the wooden beads of the window screens.”
Photography by Tijs Vervecken.
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