Beyu Caffe – Boxyard RTP

2021 NOMA Phil Freelon Design Award - Honor Award

Location: Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
Project Size: 960 SF
Status: Completed

Beyu Caffe has been a staple of Downtown Durham since its flagship location opened on Main Street in 2009. Building off its tagline encouraging people to “Be-You,” this special coffee shop celebrates people, community, and coffee.

In the wake of the pandemic, Beyu reaffirmed its community commitment by serving thousands of meals and opening a location in the new Boyxard RTP, a retail ensemble pairing small businesses with shipping containers. The open, welcoming, and vibrantly fresh design fuses Beyu’s distinct identity with Boxyard’s industrial roots in three conjoined shipping containers with predetermined openings. The design divides the café program into compartmentalized functions—take, serve, and stay—each with their own respective birch plywood built-in that slides within the container volume. Leaving the container walls exposed maximizes floor area in a constrained floor plan and highlights the café’s concept as a kit of parts that come together to create the Beyu Caffe experience within a rigid plan format.

In sync with their intentional locations and ability to highlight the legacy of Black Wallstreet in Durham, the expansive mural in this new location extends Beyu’s storytelling of Black Wallstreet’s deep history. The community wall conveys Durham’s rich legacy of Black entrepreneurship by featuring key people and places from Black Wall Street’s origins. The entire graphic is created from Beyu’s coffee cup branding. Tying back to Beyu’s origin as an evening jazz club, built-in wood counters along the storefront allow coffee shop visitors front row views of music and other performances in the courtyard outside.