Healdsburg
,
CA USA
Single Thread
Farm, Restaurant & Inn
,
Healdsburg
,
CA USA
Farm, Restaurant & Inn
,
About
Single Thread is a three Michelin Star restaurant, farm and inn in Healdsburg, CA. The AvroKO team found its inspiration for the design in husband and wife team and owners, Kyle and Katina Connaughton. In understanding that a restaurant is not only a place to eat, but also a functioning studio for its craftsmen, AvroKO created a dining experience that is akin to spending an evening with Kyle and Katina in their personal workshop, where diners are given the opportunity to both observe the artistic process and enjoy its end product.
Elements of the ‘studio’ are found throughout the dining room: silverware is stored in one of seven hand-numbered drawers that label which course it is used for; ceramic vessels found in various storage units appear to be decorative until the Chef fetches them for a specific course during the night; a glass terrarium serves as both a beautiful visual and a workspace for Katina to build nightly flower displays. Odes to the couple’s love for farming, gardening, and molecular gastronomy can also be found throughout the space.
James Beard Design Awards
Best Restaurant Design
LOCATION
Healdsburg
,
CA USA
Size
9,200 ft² / 855 m²
CaTEGORY
Food & Beverage
Client
Up Ventures LLC
Keys
Dream Team
A three Michelin Star experience in the heart of wine country
Born from an obsessive passion for nuance, craft and innovation, this modern Californian Ryokan is filled with lovingly personal touches and an unwavering commitment to exceptional guest experience. Japan meets Northern California in this exacting culinary destination.
Open Gallery
High-touch details abound at Single Thread
Fibonacci and the Farm
Given Katina’s abilities to understand the micro-nuances of farming and gardening, and Kyle’s experiences with molecular gastronomy, AvroKO found inspiration in the science and mathematics of nature. Fibonacci sequences and golden sections that come from natural growth patterns and natural proportions played heavily into the design, driving material transitions, tile proportions, patterns, and layouts.
Floating ceiling panels have grids that highlight golden section relationships, as do the kitchen tile patterns, the leather wrapped columns, the dining room screens, and the oversized custom wood entry door. Sliding brass and fabric doors that divide the kitchen and dining room have an abstracted Fibonacci proportion that is only revealed in full once the doors are closed towards meal’s end.
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The DNA is in the Details
Woven patterns within the dining room screens, constructed of loom components and parts, reference DNA sequencing of common kitchen herbs like basil and shallots, and showcase Kyle’s understanding of molecular structure and properties of food. These ephemeral and delicate room dividers add a reverent hush to the space.
Organizing Principles
Architecturally, AvroKO looked to the Villa Mairea, where Alvar Aalto showcases not just a final project, but rather a series of studies on form, material, and detail that compose the final product. As a device to solve for inconvenient structural column locations left over from the building’s previous tenant, AvroKO referenced Aalto’s column types in Villa Mairea to hide the building's existing structure and also define a central dining area. Each column type has a specific leather-wrapped banding pattern, hand-stitched to the column in situ that nods to many of the other Scandinavian craftsmen working during Aalto’s era.
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Open Gallery
Earth and Process
With the importance of Japanese donabe ceramic vessels in Kyle’s process of cooking, and his relationship to master ceramicists in Iga, Japan, the ceramic studio was a specific source of inspiration. Rather than surround the kitchen walls with a single pattern, glazed tiles vary in layout, size, and grout thickness, as if running experiments and mock-ups of proportion, pattern, and relationship. The private dining room feature wall is composed of hundreds of hand-dipped, hand-numbered ceramic strips that display densities and cone firings of various glazes, a common sight in the ceramic studio. As an untraditional feature artwork, AvroKO chose to hang the actual kiln shelves used in the UNESCO-designated Iga kilns, with all their marks and shadows that illustrate the process of hundreds of kiln firings.
Process is king at Single Thread
The five suites have an abundance of fine detail.
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Discover More
Awards & Accolades
Best Restaurant Design
James Beard Foundation Awards
Best New Hotels in the World
Conde Nast Traveler's Hot List
Special Prize, Restaurant Interiors
Prix Versailles: North America
Best Restaurant Fine Dining finalist
Gold Key Awards
"Equal parts luxury and comfort, a balance that's rarely achieved."
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