Venice, California, is the location of Cake’s flagship American showroom, offering up 4,000 sq ft of space for the Swedish electric motorbike company to flex its zero-emission wares in what was once the capital of combustion.
Cake’s recipe for urban mobility extends from electric mopeds to cargo delivery bikes, utility machines and more. Founded in 2016 by Stefan Ytterborn, the company’s global reach recently extended to the West Coast with this new showroom on the Pacific Coast Highway.
Inside Cake HQ, California, by Shin Shin
Designed by LA and Detroit-based architects Shin Shin, the new space is a fitting HQ, offering up a minimal frontage to the famous highway, with two large windows to tantalise nose-to-tail traffic with crisply minimal examples of Cake’s delectable wares.
In addition to the showrooms, Cake HQ includes an office area, meeting rooms, workshops, as well as an outdoor lounge with all-important test-ride stations. It’ll be followed by outposts in New York and San Francisco, also designed by Shin Shin.
Melissa Shin and her team have taken Cake’s core values on board, transforming an existing warehouse (previously used as a nightclub) into a sleek space that pairs minimal finishes with exposed elements of the existing structure. The watchwords ‘light, quiet and clean’ were deployed throughout, ensuring the Cake’s Swedish roots showed through with style.
It’s also worth noting that the new HQ stands across the road from a large Harley Davidson dealership; although the iconic American bikes are slowly making the shift to electric power, they’re still a world apart from Cake’s skeletal, utilitarian aesthetic.
Their bikes are effectively showcased in the lab-like main space, which has white painted brick walls and an acrylic floor, contrasting with the exposed wooden ceiling above. Custom-designed tables bear merchandise and key components, while display areas are given over to the company’s social and charitable initiatives around the world.
Cake, RideCake.com
Shin Shin Architecture, ShinShinArch.com
General contractor, KCC
-
‘Concrete Dreams’: rethinking Newcastle’s brutalist pastA new project and exhibition at the Farrell Centre in Newcastle revisits the radical urban ideas that changed Tyneside in the 1960s and 1970s
-
Mexican designers show their metal at Gallery Collectional, Dubai‘Unearthing’ at Dubai’s Gallery Collectional sees Ewe Studio designers Manu Bañó and Héctor Esrawe celebrate Mexican craftsmanship with contemporary forms
-
At The Manner, New York has a highly fashionable new living roomThe Manner, a new hopsitality experience by Standard International in the heart of SoHo, triples up as a hotel, private residence, and members’ club
-
Does the Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series epitomise Pebble Beach culture?Mercedes-Maybach launched its new SL 680 Monogram Series at Monterey Car Week 2024. How does Maybach's 21st-century take on upper-class motoring square with America's most upscale auto show?
-
Rivian cooks up the ultimate contemporary camping accessory, the Travel KitchenWest Coast off-road EV specialists Rivian are no strangers to multi-functional design. The company’s latest accessory is its bespoke onboard Travel Kitchen
-
With the Lucid Air and now the Lucid Gravity, the Californian EV maker is redefining luxuryAs the Lucid Gravity debuts, Derek Jenkins, Lucid Motors’ SVP of Brand and Design, discusses the EV company's approach to shaping high-end, high-performance electric cars
-
New Volkswagen California is a hybridised camper van that has it allThe Volkswagen New California camper van is here, the latest update to VW’s evergreen classic, bringing a larger platform, more flexibility and hybrid power for the first time
-
EMC White Wolf is a military Mercedes turned modern-day cruiserThe Expedition Motor Company (EMC) takes surplus Mercedes G-Wagens and uprates them for contemporary collectors, creating a classic car that goes anywhere
-
Four new compact camper vans showcase the best in modest mobile home designVolkswagen, Citroën, Ford and Mercedes-Benz showcase their latest takes on contemporary van living
