Atelier Kampot

Atelier Kampot is a French inspired Bistro and Kampot pepper boutique located on Kampot’s riverside. The former traditional Chinese shophouse was built in 1945 and, due to its delicate state, almost entirely refurbished in 2015. With the aim to maintain the building’s historic value, traditional building techniques and materials were used wherever possible, converting the bistro into a role-model for contemporary architecture applied to historic houses.

Native was approached to design and build a landscape solution for the bistro’s interior patio, providing the restaurant a fresh, green touch with plants native to Southern Cambodia while baring in mind an extreme high water table and occasional flooding due to the proximity to the river.

The solution was to create an “forest understory” landscape arrayed planted in pots of varying sizes in order to create some depth and dynamism to the small patio. Deep greens and broad textures compliment the rich browns and highly detailed finishings of the house. A giant elephant ear plant acts as a sculptural element whose vertical leafs play with the magnificent spiral staircase.

Architect: Bloom Architecture