Much like the planet's most stylish coffee shops, tea houses seem to make for natural hotspots for sharp, experimental design; after all, it doesn't really make sense to go out and actually meet someone for tea unless there's a some ambience to make the mark-up worthwhile. Take for one, The Village Green, a pop-up tea shop built for the 2008 Melbourne Cup horse races. Australian design firm Hecker Phelan & Guthrie riffed the white-glove, garden-party tea experience by draping the interiors in spring-green fabric and bringing in white picket fences, Astroturf, and over-sized floral pendant lamps. Elsewhere in the world: inflatable tea houses, pop-up book structures, and a treehouse iteration. Those and more, above.
—research by Alexandra Danna
· High Design Tea at the Races [In Design Live]
· All Eating Pretty posts [Curbed National]